Life as a Demigod
by potterjay92
Summary: Joey Rodgers is what you would call a normal kid with dyslexia. Until he realizes that his bestfriend is actually a supernatural goat boy who has to protect him from monsters that were supposed to be Mythical. Oh and that he is actually half god and his parents knew about it all along. Yea...I'd say normal was a bit of a reach.
1. Chapter One

**Alrighty...here's a story for any Percy Jackson fan out there. However, Percy is not in this story. Characters from the books are in it though. This takes place a couple years or so before Percy comes to camp.**

**I do not own Percy Jackson.**

**Belongs to Rick Riordan.**

**UPDATE FOR ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN KEEPING UP: Someone had left me an review letting me know that Joey shouldn't have been Grover's second chance at being a protector for a demigod. At the time I didn't think fully of it because it was supposed to be some years before Percy so we wouldn't know what had happened. I'm re-reading the first book and see that Grover didn't get another job until Percy came into play. So I decided to update the chapters with Grover as Joey's friend and changed him to another satyr named Franky. The storyline with Franky is still the same. I just had to change a few details that were obviously based off of Grover. Other than that everything else is the same.  
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_**Chapter One**_

Want to hear something weird? Like, not even close to normal type of weird? I found out yesterday that I'm a demigod. Yes, I said _demigod_. I know what you're thinking. It's just a Myth. I can't possibly be half human half god, because that's only part of a made up fantasy world. But nope. I assure you it's true. It is just as real as you and me. My birth was as normal as you could think. But yet it wasn't. My name is Joey Rodgers. I'm eleven years old, and I'm going to tell you how the subject of finding out this information came about. If you're still able to process I just may tell you about this crazy place called Camp Half-Blood.

Last summer I met this kid named Franky. I was ten at the time. There was about a month left till school started when I came across him while hanging around the park one summer day. I don't know what made me decide to go up to him. It may have been the idea that I was new in town and didn't have any friends. Or it could have been because he was sitting there by himself and I'm a nice person so I felt bad. Either way I managed to get the courage to go up to him.

As I walked over I noticed he was reading a book with the sun in his eyes. He was wearing a baseball cap but was wearing it backwards. That made total sense.

"Hey there Pal." Were the first words I said when I got to him.

He looked up at me, putting his hand in front of his face to block the sun. He seemed to be really confused. It was as if he was trying to figure out what I was doing talking to him.

"Um." I start out. "You okay?" He slowly nods.

By this point I was regretting interacting with him. I thought maybe he didn't know how to talk. Which would have been extremely awkward. But then he scoots over and allows me to sit in the grass next to him.

I hesitate for a minute. "I'm Joey." I say as I sit down.

"Franky." He says shyly. "New?"

I give him a look. "Yea. How did you..."

"Know?" I nod and he shrugs. "Lucky guess."

"Oh."

He nods. "Where did you move from?"

"Florida."

He raises an eyebrow. "Why leave to come to Manhattan?"

"Dad got a job offer." I hesitate. "Plus I have Dyslexia. The school I went to didn't seem to be helping. So when dad got this offer he thought the change would help."

"Dyslexia huh?" His eyes lit up a bit as he said it.

"Uh. Yea. Bit annoying."

"Things will get better."

"You think?"

He smiles and nods. "Yea."

"My mom says that too."

I'm not sure why but his expression changes a bit. It was like the excitement in his eyes disappeared. But before I could get into it he changed the subject.

We talked for awhile. Minutes had turned into hours. By the end I think he knew more about me than I did about him. The most I got out of him was that he's nine years old (which was weird because he had teenaged features), lives in a foster home and happens to be going to the same public school as me.

The rest of that summer we hung out everyday. I introduced him to my parents and my twin twenty year old brothers Billy and Hunter. The weird thing about it was that they all seemed to have this vibe I didn't quite get. At first I thought it was just me. But then I started to notice it more. It was always when Franky was around and I couldn't figure out what was going on with them. I thought they didn't like him. When I found out about who I am is when they tell me they had this feeling that Franky was the one who was coming to get me.

School starts and me and Franky are as tight as can be. We were pretty inseparable. I mean so much so that when people made fun of him because of how he walked I exploded. He has a bit of a weird limp but that didn't keep him from playing gym. I almost got into a fight a few times about it but managed to contain myself. I got expelled once when I lived in Florida. I was not about to disappoint my parents again by getting into a fight.

Then yesterday my whole life changed in a blink of an eye. The last day of school is just a week away and this all happens. Finding out about who I really am was not a walk in the park to find out. Especially when a monster attacks you. That's right...I said monster. I was on the bus heading home from school with Franky when it happened. I have no idea what this thing was. Just that one minute it was a human man and the next it had wings. Then it lunged at me. But the weird thing is that no one else noticed the demonic features of this man...thing, had ended up getting. Apparently they thought they were being robbed. Someone yelled the word "Gun!" And everyone took off out of the bus. Only if they knew.

With the help of Franky I made it out alive. I don't know what happened after because he forced me to run. All I know is that as we got closer to my house we were both exhausted and had some injuries. His hand was bleeding and had a few cuts and bruises to his face. I got cut somewhere above my eye. That much I knew because I could feel blood dripping. I kept wiping it off but it wouldn't stop.

When we finally got to my house my family didn't understand the way we rushed in. We were covered in blood and it was like they were processing the sight of how we looked. Then they reacted and asked what happened and got us cleaned up, all while I tried to explain what happened. I was in shock to find that they _believed_ me. I mean their faces got so pale they looked like they were about to be sick, but still believed every word. Who believes some nonsense about a monster trying to kill you? Apparently demigod families who know that you're best friend is actually half goat do! The goat thing is a long story. One I'll get to soon. But obviously I didn't know this at the time.

"So you didn't use the watch I gave you?" Dad asks.

I look down at the watch he gave me for my birthday last year. "No?"

He sighs. "Son. I told you that is for your protection."

"I don't get it."

He shakes his head. "Nothing. Just...next time you are in danger press the blue button on the side. It'll help. I promise."

I go to say something but then I'm distracted by mom rushing over to the closet. She pulls out a bag. "Mom." I slowly say. "What is that?"

She looks at it. "Your bag for Camp Half-Blood." She says as if this was normal.

I raise an eyebrow. "Camp what?"

"Half-Blood sweetie."

"I don't understand what's going on."

"We'll explain in the car bud." Dad says. "There's no time right now."

I back away from them a bit. I was a little ticked off that they knew what was going on and not telling me anything. "How long are you expecting me to stay at this camp?" I say a bit worried. It was so big it looked like she had packed enough for me to be gone for years. Right now I felt like this was all a joke. Or them trying to get rid of me for being such a handful with my Dyslexia.

"It's just for the summer." She hesitates. "But you have the option of not coming back for the school year." Her eyes started to tear a bit.

I have a confused face "Of course I'll be back for the school year."

"But the monster..."

"Won't keep me away from my family." I half smile.

She smiles at me. "We need to get you out of here." She turns and walks away. We all follow to the car.

I still had no idea what was going on. We were driving to who knows where. Dad was driving while mom gave him directions. Hunter and Billy were in the middle seats a bit quieter than I've ever heard them. I don't know what was going through their heads but I don't think it was good. Then my best friend was sitting next to me in the far back seats of the car, chomping away on some soda cans.

"Franky?" He looks at me. The cut under his eye plus the black eye made him look a bit like a badass. Doubt anyone from school would bother him now. "What are you doing?" I say as I watch him with a bit of disgust and yet concern that he may rip open his throat. "Are you crazy?"

He takes a bit to answer. "Uh. Well. Joey. There's something you don't know about me."

"Well yea...you're eating a tin can and you haven't freaked out about that monster. There must be something I don't know about _everything_."

I turned away for a second as a cop car sped past us. When I looked back Franky was pulling down his pants.

"Whoa! Dude, what the hell. Keep your pants on!"

He laughs. "Relax Joey. I'm trying to show you something."

"I don't need to see you in your underwear man."

In the most serious face I've ever seen from him he says. "I'm not wearing underwear."

I give him a look that was probably a mixture of being annoyed and horrified at the same time. This makes him laugh even harder. I even heard the twins and my parents laughing. He wipes some of the tears from his eyes. "But that's not the point. Look." Now he gets them fully off and I don't see legs, or at least not _human_ legs. They were furry. Like animal fur.

My mouth just drops. "What in the world are you?"

He pulls his pants back up. "I'm a satyr."

"A...what?"

"Satyr. Well if you want to be technical, then I'm your protector." He takes off his sneakers and they aren't feet, but hooves.

I look from them to his face. "You're a goat."

He gives me a look. "I prefer satyr. Puts more of an important vibe to it."

I slowly nod. "Right."

I looked away in shock. For a bit the ride was quiet. My brain was going a million miles a minute. What is going on? Then finally the silence goes away as they got into the story of how all this happened.

"It was about a year before you were born." Mom had started.

"We were heading to Disney World and I was just leaving the house to go to the car." Dad continues.

He tells how a lady was crossing the street. Dad yelled when he saw a car coming, but it was as if she didn't notice. So what does he do? He runs over to her and just as he gets her out of the way, mom yells in horror and they both fall to the ground. She thanks him and says that he will be rewarded. Dad refuses but she insists.

"I will be back to explain your reward a day before it happens." She said, then took off.

They all thought she was nuts. Not even paying attention to what she said until she came around to explain a year later. The day before it happens was the night before mom went into labor with me.

"We were around your age when we found out who you would be." Hunter says.

"I still remember like it was yesterday." Billy adds.

Then they one by one add bits and pieces to what happened. It's still weird to process. My dad is a college professor on Mythical stuff. I can tell you that I know enough about Greek Mythology to understand what they were telling me. But I had never heard of a god doing this before.

"Your baby is destined for greatness." The lady had said as they sat at the couch.

"Who..." Mom tries to get out.

"Who will be a hero one day." She adds.

"Of course he will." Dad says. "As long as he finds a path that he likes."

"A boy." She smiles. "He will fit in nicely."

"I don't understand what you are trying to say." Mom stops. "You haven't even told us who you are."

"When you saved me that day. I promised a reward. This reward will be repaid when your son is born. He will grow up to do things you couldn't imagine. Whether to be open minded about it is all up to you." She waits to see if they say anything. Then she continues. "As for who I am. I am Athena. Goddess of..."

"Wisdom." I interrupt with my mouth hanging half open. "War strategy, arts..."

"Courage, mathematics, etc etc. That's how I reacted and those were her words back to me." Dad says.

I'm stunned for a second. "For a son of the goddess of wisdom my grades sure wouldn't let you know it."

Dad half smiles. "JoJo. There's more to it than that."

"What do you mean?"

"We are getting to that." Mom says. Then they continue.

"But...that's just a Myth." Dad says to Athena. "Made up to give us a story to tell."

She smiles. "I assure you. I, as well as the others, are very real. You just need to know where to look."

"Where will our brother fit in?" Ten year old Billy asked.

She looks at him. Her eyes seemed to be smiling. "He will fit into the personalities of my other sons and daughters."

"Wait." She looks at dad. "Are you saying..." Dad has to stop to process. "That my son is..." He looks at mom then back to Athena. "Going to be half god?"

"What?" Mom says.

Athena has a gleeful smile and nods. "I am."

"But. That's not possible." Mom says.

"I assure you it is." She says.

Dad shakes his head. "No. Hold on. First of all, my wife is the one who's having my baby." He glares at her. "So how..."

"As you know I don't conceive the same way most do since I am a maiden goddess." She says as if that was simple to guess that being this type of goddess makes her not allowed to be with other men, just attraction to give children in an unique way. Dad of course nods because he knows everything there is to know about stuff like this. "But in your situation it was more complicated."

"How is this more complicated than anything else!" Mom half yells. "You're crazy you know that?"

"Becky!" Dad yells. "Goddess over here."

"How are you believing this nonsense Jordan?"

Before dad can answer Athena raises her hand, quieting them. "I swear on the River Styx that I am telling no lies."

Mom raises an eyebrow. "River what?"

"It's a river from the Underworld." Dad says.

"Of course you would know that." Then she looks back to Athena. "Prove yourself and explain what you mean by complicated."

Athena is quiet for a second. Then starts. "When I find someone worthy enough to care for my child I leave them with a single male. Considering your sacrifice and that you were married, I had to make an exception." She watches them. "The baby is very much yours. I did not interfere in that way." They both had a relieved expression when they heard this. "But I did, however, leave a piece of myself with your son. This will make him half mine."

I could imagine how their faces were when they found out. Because I'm sure mine looked exactly the same when I heard this.

"I...I didn't even know that was possible." Dad says. "I teach Greek Mythology and that has never been included in the textbooks."

"Is that really what you are worried about!" Mom yells at him. "She made our son half magical and you're worried about how she did it? Is your head screwed on right!"

Athena raises both her hands to calm down the argument that was starting up. "I didn't mean to make this hard for you. I just wished to repay the reward you earned. But what's done is done. We have things to discuss."

She gets into detail about how being a demigod will either have me born with ADHD or Dyslexia, sometimes both. Apparently being ADHD is part of being on guard and ready to fight for battle. This scared them of course. Having Dyslexia is because my brain is wired to read Greek, not English. Which explains why my grades aren't the greatest for someone who should be smart coming from this specific god.

From there she explained that attacks from mystical monsters would happen because they are after me. Now they have the choice to wait till I'm thirteen before my godly scent gets to its full strength for the monsters to notice. Or she could take me after I'm born to a camp she explained would be safer for me. That would give them the choice to erase memories from family members and friends so they don't have to explain what happened to me after birth. She said that if they wished to give me away she could wipe the memory from them as well to keep the pain away. As you know they declined that offer, thinking that she had to be pulling their legs. Now a year earlier than expected I was shipped away to this camp to stay protected and my godly mother is Athena, one of the greatest gods throughout time. How am I worthy to be her son?

I was pretty hyped up now. If I had ADHD like other demigods I probably would have been able to fly. Or is that only if you're the kid of Zeus? My point is, I felt like I could do just about anything. Telling someone with an imagination like mine that they are half god can really get you going. I was ready to fight that monster that ambushed us that's for sure.

But I must say. Finding out I'm a demigod took me by surprise for a minute, but then it didn't seem so bad. I mean getting attacked by a monster that pretended to be human was for sure scary. But knowing that I was magical was pretty sweet. Who else can say that they have a god as their parent? Well...ok, other demigods can but how many can there actually be? Little did I know there could be a lot of them. This is going to be an interesting lifestyle.


	2. Chapter Two

**I do not own Percy Jackson.**

**Belongs to Rick Riordan.**

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_**Chapter Two**_

I had no idea the ride to this camp would take so long. I fell asleep for like a half hour or so and we were still on the road when I woke up. I had no idea where we were. It was just a highway with trees all around us. We were no where near the city, that's for sure.

For a second I forgot where we were going. Then I remembered and honestly, I didn't even want to go. But apparently I had no choice. I was mad that they knew this whole time. Did they not think I could take care of myself? I wished they trusted me enough to tell me things before so I could have prepared myself or something. Just dropping my whole life to pick up and go somewhere I had no idea about was unfair. Sure I would be back at the end of summer vacation and I would have Franky with me but I feel like my whole life has been nothing but a lie.

"I'm hungry." Hunter says.

"Me too." Billy adds.

I see dad look through the mirror. "Okay. Rest stop coming up in five."

When we got to an exit we took it and pulled into a rest stop. There was a pretty big building, a sign with the names of whatever stores/food places was next to it. Chinese was one of the options and I was now feeling my stomach yelling at me for food.

Franky was iffy to let me leave the car. But I reminded him that I couldn't live off of tin cans. I needed to eat actual food. And that my bladder was ready to burst. That backed him out of keeping me from going in a heart beat.

We realized quickly that stopping wasn't the best idea. Because while mom and dad got our food something called a Minotaur (Bull head with a human like body) burst into the bathroom while me and my brothers were using it. For a second I was in too much shock to do anything. I knew all about this type of monster. But to see it for real was a bit much to grasp. Then I heard a yell and watched as it shoved Billy aside. He slid across the floor and just managed to get his feet up to stop himself before he hit the wall. Now it was after me and I had no idea what to do. I was not prepared for something like this.

"Joey!" I look between the Minotaurs legs and just get a glimpse of Franky. He throws what I could only think was some kind of fruit at it. "Over here you big ugly meat head!" If we hadn't been in the middle of trying to live I would have found this more funny.

He starts to run around so it would follow him instead of me. "What are you doing!" I yell at him.

"Get your family to the car and go."

"I'm not leaving you." I say as Hunter and Billy get to me.

"I'll meet you at camp."

"No!" Hunter grabs my arm and starts to drag me away. "Franky!"

"I'll be there as soon as I can. I promise!"

There was no time for me to argue because the twins both pulled me out as fast as they could. As soon as we got out we noticed people running around in chaos. There was a huge hole in the wall in front of the building. Something with wings was chasing everyone. Hunter didn't think twice as he got me to the car while Billy went to look for mom and dad. I couldn't believe they left him behind. My best friend was most likely going to be dead and they didn't even try to help me get him out.

"I can't believe you!" I yell at Hunter. "He is going to die in there if we don't help him." I try to get passed him but he forces me up against the car. Pain shot up my back but I kept myself from yelling out.

"Stop it." He says calmly. He sounded like he was at the verge of tears. He backs up a bit. "He'll be fine. _You're_ the one you should be worried about."

"He's my best friend!"

"This is his job Joey!" He watches me carefully. Then we hear the doors unlock and he opens it. "He knows what he's doing."

For a second I don't move, just watching him. Then I turn and get in. "But he's just a kid." I take a deep breath, trying to keep myself from getting upset. I couldn't take it.

Hunter gets in after me and sits in the back with me. I see dad, mom and Billy jumping into the car. The engine turns on and off we went.

He then grabs my head and leans his forehead against mine. "He'll make it to camp little man. He was trained for this."

My eyes water a bit. "I hope so."

Not too long after leaving, mom and dad pulled into a parking lot so we could eat. This is when they finally noticed Franky was missing. We explained what happened and that left them looking at me with concern. Franky may have lied to me for most of the year about figuring out who I was but he was the closest friend I've ever made.

Then we take off again and the next thing I know I'm waking up to a shake as the car jerks to the side. It scares me half to death and my eyes shoot open. I had been laying up against Hunter. He had his arm resting around my shoulder and was asleep as well, till the car went nuts.

"What's going on?" We both say.

Billy looks back. "Almost ran into a cow."

I yawn and rub my eyes. "A cow?"

He nods. "We are in the farming section of Long Island."

"Almost there." Dad says.

"Oh." I yawn "Great." I say sarcasticly.

I look out the window and see the trees flying past us. Dad was really trying to kill time by rushing. Seeing what happened at the rest stop must have made this more real to him. As for me I'm still in between. Before the Minotaur I thought maybe I made up the first monster in my head, or even dreamt it. But now I'm a bit more sure this is going on. I mean I wasn't the only one who saw that Bull head. The twins saw it too. I'm not going crazy...right?

"Hey." I look over at Hunter. He's half smiling at me. "Nervous?"

I shrug. "Hasn't really hit me yet. Doesn't seem real."

He nods. "I get what you mean. But I will vouch that this is for sure happening kiddo."

"Is there any chance I'm asleep?"

He smiles a bit and shakes his head. "Afraid not."

I take a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare myself. I've never really been away from my family before. I mean unless I was sleeping over a family members house, but that was rare. But knowing that I was going to be gone for the entire summer and possibly the school year "Depending on how things go." dad had told me while we ate in the parking lot, just didn't feel right. I don't want to be away from them. Especially now.

"Relax." I hear Billy from in front of me. "You're freaking yourself out."

I look at him and noticed we were slowing down. "Too late to relax Bill. Because we are here."


	3. Chapter Three

**I do not take credit for Percy Jackson.**

**Belongs to Rick Riordan.**

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**_Chapter Three_**

It was almost completely dark now. There was no one in sight on this dirt road. We were the only car for miles. Or so it seemed. Trees all around us and I couldn't see a camp anywhere.

"Are we in the right place?" I ask.

I hear a slam and turn around as my heart jumped. Dad was getting my bag out of the trunk. "We are." He says. "According to Athena it's just beyond that giant tree." He points in front of me. Just barely visible was a huge tree with a thick trunk. If you didn't know where to look you wouldn't have noticed it.

"Do I really have to?"

Mom and dad both nod. "Afraid so." Dad says.

I feel anger, yet sadness going through me. "But..."

"Hey!"

We all turn around. "Franky?" I squint through the trees to make sure I was seeing correctly. He was racing through the woods towards us. When he got closer I could tell it was in fact Franky. "How did you..." But before I could continue I was distracted by something that was walking down behind him. A man...no, not a man. A...horseman? I mean his lower body was a horse and the top was a man. "Is that a..."

"Centaur." Dad finishes for me. "Holy..."

"Don't you finish that sentence Jordan." Mom says.

Dad turns a little red. "Sorry honey."

"Welcome." The centaur says with his hands outstretched from a distance.

It seemed he was trying to keep himself out of sight. I mean it was understandable that he didn't want to be close enough for people to see. Except for the fact that there was no one else around of course. Even if there were, Franky explained that this thing called Mist covers the layers of the magical side from mortals. This keeps things from getting complicated. Don't know how much more complicated things could get if I'm being honest.

"I am Chiron. Activities Director here at Camp Half-Blood." The centaur continues.

Dad being curious as always walks closer. "Jordan!" Mom half whispers, half yells. But no use. He was already halfway to him. Mom and the twins follow him, but they seemed a bit scared to.

I feel a thump to my back as a hand hits it. "Told you I'd meet you."

I turn to Franky, who had a big smile on his bruised up face. "Yea about that." I start. "How did you get here before us?"

He points towards the trees. "Chiron." He says. "After the Minotaur took off I Iris Messaged him to let him know what happened. In return he sent a Pegasus to get me."

"They're real?"

He smiles and nods. "Shouldn't surprise you. After everything you've seen today."

I half smile. Then I think for a minute. "What's an Iris Message?"

"It's a way to communicate."

"Couldn't just call him?"

"No phones." He says. "It triggers a signal that allows monsters to find demigods more easily."

"So no electronics?"

"You can use electronics. Just not phones or cellphones."

"Good to know."

He half laughs. "You'll get used to it."

"Not so sure about that. I mean you have to admit this is a bit much to believe."

He nods. "I've seen enough newbies to understand your thinking Joey. But this is going to change your life."

"No kidding."

He smiles. "It can change your life for the better. You just have to be open minded about it. If not then it'll be harder."

"You're really telling me to give up my normal life for this?"

"Joey. Your life is never going to be normal again. Now that they know you're out there the monsters will come around more. At least here you'll be protected by magical forces and around other demigods. You'll fit in fine."

He brings me over to Chiron as he was finishing up his conversation with my family. "He will be in good hands with us."

"How can we get in contact?" Mom asks.

"Safest for Demigods are letters usually. But I recommend Iris Message." He says.

"What's that?" Hunter asks.

"It's like using a webcam." Franky buds in.

They all turn to us. "Webcam?" Billy says.

He nods. "You see each other through the message. It's as if you are looking at each other through a screen."

Dad raises an eyebrow. "Isn't that what Athena did just after Joey was born?" He looks at mom.

"What?" I say as mom nods.

"She wanted to make sure we were absolutely positive that we didn't want to give you up. Her face popped out of nowhere. But it was as if she was right in front of us."

"Precisely the point." Chiron says. "Very useful." He then explains how it works. You had to use godly money called drachma to pay the goddess of the Iris Message. So he handed some to mom to make sure they could call me.

From there we said our goodbyes. I really didn't want to go. I could tell in their eyes they didn't want me to either. But we had no other options. I hoped that they would allow me to come home. Because after what they've seen today dad seemed to be thinking twice about having me away from this safety camp.

For awhile I couldn't take my eyes off their car as it drove off. Hunter and Billy were both sitting in the back waving at me as it got farther and farther away. After difficulty, I managed to get myself to look away and we walked towards the camp.

I was quiet at first but then I got out. "Do I at least get to meet her?"

They both look at me with confused faces. "Who?"

"Athena."

They're quiet. "That's complicated." Chiron says.

"It's a simple question."

"Well. There's a simple answer to it but the reasoning is complicated."

"Then that's a no." He nods. "Why."

"The gods made it a law that they aren't allowed to see their kids. It makes them too connected to the mortal world."

"So you're telling me that we all get forced into this life and don't even get to see our godly parents?" He nods. "That's totally unfair. Especially for the kids who only grow up with one parent."

Franky gives me a sad look. "That's just how it goes Joey. Can't argue with the gods."

I start to play around with the watch dad gave me. "Doesn't make it right. I was lucky to have both."

"You can't really compare your situation with other demigods. It's unique. Never been done before." Chiron says.

"So you already know my background?"

He nods. "Franky explained everything just before you got here."

I think for a second. "Does that make me different?"

"All demigods are different Mr. Rodgers." Chiron says.

I shake my head. "No. I mean more different." They both watch me. "I'm half god and half human like the others but I was born from _two_ human parents. Not just one like the rest. So does that make me less powerful since I wasn't actually made from a god?"

Neither of them answer for a few seconds. "I don't think being born from two mortal parents changes that you are still half god." Chiron says. I go to say something but he continues. "It matters not that you weren't brought up from Athena herself. She still gave you her magical side. That's what's important. It's just a different aspect than what we are used to seeing. I'll say that that niece of mine may be the goddess of wisdom but she does have her moments where she doesn't think before she acts. There are many other ways to reward someone who is married."

"Oh my God." I say.

"Gods Mr. Rodgers. You may have been brought up with a certain religion in the mortal world but now that you know who you really are it's not just one God anymore."

"Oh...right." But I wasn't really paying attention. A part of a story I read from one of dads books came back to me. "You're Kronos's son." His face starts to get a little red. I wasn't sure if it was from being embarrassed because his father was evil and tried to kill his kids, or because he was mad that I even brought it up. But it didn't stop me from continuing. "You're Athena's uncle because she is Zeus's daughter, which makes you my uncle too."

He half smiles. "You know your Mythology well for a young child. Not many demigods even know what it is by the time they get here."

"My dad's a College Professor. This is what he teaches. So I grew up with it."

"Clever man." He says, then changes the subject as we got closer to the tree.

Just to get there we had to go up a hill. _Half-Blood Hill_ Franky called it. It was a bit exhausting but when we finally got up it I could see a short distance away from the tree the entrance to the camp. There was a door like frame, except there was no door. It said the words _Camp Half-Blood_ on the top part of it. Even with my Dyslexia I was able to read that with almost no problem. There were bushes scattered on the sides of the frame. There weren't walls though. No type of reliable barrier at all.

"How is this a safe place for me if the camp is wide open?" I say a bit annoyed.

"The tree." Franky says. His eyes shift a bit as he looked at it. "The tree has powers. Once you pass it a force field keeps out non half-bloods or anything threatening to hurt us."

"Oh." He nods. "Handy."

"We like to think so." Chiron cuts in. "Now come Joey. There is lots to do." We then head off towards the camp.


	4. Chapter Four

**I do not take credit for Percy Jackson.**

**Rick Riordan owns.**

**PS...I'm not sure what Athena's cabin looks like on the outside. I did the best I could by looking up the details on websites but I kept finding two different color descriptions and just chose one. Don't hold it against me!**

* * *

**_Chapter Four_**

I will say now that this place was pretty interesting. It was huge and not like any normal camp that's for sure. They had a few water sources. A creek, lake and the beach was way in the back of camp near the cabins where the demigods sleep. There was this place called the dining pavilion, where we eat our meals. The archery field seems like fun. They have a sword fighting arena and I'm pretty sure I'll probably stay away from that. There was even a climbing wall with lava. It's supposed to be a training area but who was stupid enough to make it with lava I'll never know.

"Why would I want to climb that?"

Franky laughs. "You are half god Joey. You're not going to die from it."

"So I'm invincible?"

"Not exactly." Chiron says. "There are certain things from both worlds that can hurt you. But for the most part you're godly half can keep you safe. But that all depends."

I gulp a bit. "Uh. Right." I look back at the wall. "I'm not a fan of heights anyway. So won't be doing much with that."

Franky laughs a bit. "Guess it's a good thing you're not the son of Zeus then. After all, he is god of the sky."

I smile. "That would have been interesting to explain to people."

"But you may have to climb it depending on your schedule." Chiron says.

"My schedule?"

"It is mandatory for everyone to have a fair share in chores and it helps get everyone in for training. I already gave yours to your cabin leader but I don't remember if I put climbing as part of your training." My face turns pale and he smiles. "You will be fine Mr. Rodgers."

I had no time to argue as they continued the tour and show me an amphitheater, stables, a strawberry field and the Big House. That's where Chiron and the Camp Director Mr. D stay.

"And there you have it." Chiron says. "Camp Half-Blood." I just slowly nod as I watch different species of magical things walking around.

There were other satyrs and the most simple to handle were the humans. Which I'm assuming had to be the other demigods. Everyone was wearing orange T-shirts with the words Camp Half-Blood written in black and what looked like a silhouette of a Pegasus underneath them. Jeans and sneakers seemed to be the normal thing to wear with it, some were wearing war armor on top of their clothing.

"Those are Aphrodite's kids." Franky tells me as he points to some girls passing by that seemed to to glow as they walked with perfect hair and makeup. His eyes were twinkling as he saw them. "Demigods of love and beauty. How romantic."

I snap my fingers in front of his face, doing my best not to laugh. "Earth to Franky."

When he looks at me he starts turning red. "Sorry."

A satyr passed by us after, pulling along a Pegasus. A horse with wings was least of my worries though. My heart skipped a beat when I saw this thing. I don't know _what_ it was, but it had eyes all over its body. I'm not exaggerating!

Chiron saw my face as I watched him. "That's Argus." He says. "He's harmless."

"Harmless?"

He half smiles. "He escorts demigods to specific destinations when they need to get back to the city. Whether on Quests or to go home for vacation."

"No one notices the eyes?"

"The Mist covers him from mortal view. That is if they are lucky enough not to see through it." He says. Then smiles. "So I will have Mr. York here escort you to your cabin." He puts a hand on Franky's shoulder. "I'm afraid to say that you missed dinner but I'm sure you're siblings will be kind enough to give you anything they have in the cabin." He smiles. "If you'd like to join us there will be a bonfire later in the night, Franky can show you. Marshmallows will be included."

I try to put a nice smile and nod. "Uh. Okay."

He smiles. "Wonderful." He then walks off towards the Big House (which was a four story farm house) and out of sight.

I look at Franky. "That any fun?"

"What?" He says dreamily. He was still watching the Aphrodite girls.

"The bonfire Franky. And what did he mean by mortals being lucky enough not to see through the Mist. That's possibles?"

He looks at me. "Yea. Didn't you notice that you're entire family saw the monsters with no problem?"

I think to myself. I noticed they saw them but I didn't really pay mind to the reasoning why they saw them and how. "Is it because they are related to me?"

"Well, I mean you never saw through the mist till recently. Not all demigods do. As for your family it's most likely because of that. Usually it's just the full parents of the demigod who can see through the Mist. So makes sense why yours could." He thinks for a second. "But I guess your brothers knowing the truth about this would have them openminded and allowed them to see too."

"Oh." I say in a sad voice.

He puts the best smile he could. "Don't worry so much about it. Doesn't seem to bother them."

"Will the monsters?" He raises an eyebrow. "Will the monsters bother them even though I'm not there?"

He shakes his head. "Not usually." He seems to sense my worry. He puts an arm around my neck. "Come on man. You just found out that you're magical. Start having fun!"

"You know finding out that I'm in danger 24/7 isn't something to be happy about right? Plus there's not much magic the son of Athena can do. I mean not physically anyway. Well...besides the whole being somewhat invincible thing."

He laughs. "You'll be surprised."

I look over towards the beach. "The cabins are over there right?"

He nods. "Yea. Let's introduce you to your family." With his arm still around my neck he tugs me along towards the cabins.

Getting to the section of the cabins was a sight to see. I counted twelve cabins circling around like the letter U. There were statues and a pit for a bonfire surrounded by stoned benches in the middle. The beach was close by, it looked like you could get a good view of the ocean from some of them. They were all different sizes. From the outside it didn't look like you could fit more than six at each. But considering that the gods have been around for hundreds, or was it thousands of years? Either way there had to be enough for more than you'd expect if they go around falling in love with mortals all the time.

"And that one over there is where you will be staying." Franky points to a building on the right side towards the farther cabins in back. "That's cabin six." He adds.

He walks me over to it and I could just make out the number of the cabin when we got closer. It was etched onto the top part of the door. The outside is gray with an owl carved over the door, plain white curtains on the windows.

"Franky?" We hear a voice and turn around to see a girl covered in dirt walking towards us. She had a bright smile. "You're back."

When she gets closer I see she has wavy blond hair that was in a ponytail. It slung over one of her shoulders. She also had gray eyes. They looked a bit like storm clouds but the way it sparkled from the lights made them glow.

She hugs Franky then looks at me. "Hi." She smiles.

"Hey." I say shyly. "I'm Joey."

"He just got here." Franky says.

"Oh!" She says excitedly. "The newbie you had been watching."

He half smiles and nods. "Yea." He looks over to me. "This is Annabeth."

"Nice to meet you." She says.

I nod. "Same."

For a bit it was quiet. I really didn't know what to say. Then she says. "So do you know who's your parent?"

I nod. "Yea. It's Athena."

Her eyes brighten. "So you're my half brother then."

"You're Athena's kid too?"

She smiles and nods. Then looks me up and down. "Must have gotten your features from your father. Most of the kids get it from mom." Franky looked at me. My heart skipped a bit when she said "mom" because I have a mom. And it's not Athena.

But I understood what she meant by my features. Athena's kids are supposed to look like they can run miles without getting tired. I was a bit skinny for that. Then she has black hair and gray eyes. I have neither.

"Well." I say. "I played basketball. I thought that would be athletic enough to be her son."

She smiles. "I agree. Maybe not as muscle toned as most of the boys, but you'll fit in fine."

"And I guess the dirty blond hair doesn't count."

She smiles. "It's fine. No one in the cabin has the same colored hair as her. As for the eyes." She stops when she looked at them. "That's definitely different." She gets closer. "I've never seen that type of shade before."

I started to get a bit red. "They are a mixture of blue and gray." She wouldn't stop looking at them and now I could feel my face burning up. "Which now I understand where I got the gray from." I finish.

"That's really interesting." She says. "I've seen people whose eyes change color depending on the weather. But never mixed to the point where that's your natural color."

"I'm full of surprises today."

She laughs. "Just found out what you are huh?" I nod. "Don't worry. It'll get easier. I've been here since I was seven. I love it."

"Since you were seven?" She nods. "How old are you now?"

"Nine."

I look at Franky. "So you guys have know each other since you were seven? Me of course assuming that you grew up here."

He half laughs. His expression was a bit awkward. "Well actually."

"You're older...aren't you?" He slowly nods. "How much older than what you said?"

His face turns red. "Uh."

"You know what." He watches me and I shake my head. "I don't wanna know." He laughs a bit. Then I look back at Annabeth. I wanted to ask why she had been here so young but the sad look in her eyes gave me the warning not to.

"So." Franky cuts in before it could get awkward. "I have things I have to do." We both look at him. "Annabeth. Do you mind showing him your cabin?"

She smiles at me and then looks back to Franky. "Not at all."

He nods. "Great."

"But..." I try to get in.

"You'll be fine." He says. "I'll come visit when I can."

"Promise?"

"Yea man. Don't worry so much." He claps my back with his hand then takes off.

I look back at Annabeth. She has a smile on her face. "I don't bite you know."

I half laugh. "Well considering what I've seen today I wouldn't bet on it."

She laughs. "Well come on. I'll show you around."

The inside was quite crazy...yet interesting. There was so much stuff I wondered how it all fit. It has a library filled with bookshelves, thousands of books and old scrolls on each. There were tables and chairs to sit at. The workshop is also filled with tables, work benches and cupboards with materials to build things. I could get used to that. There were also 3-D models of buildings, blueprints, old war maps, and armor displayed on the walls. Then all the bunk beds were pushed up against the walls. On the side of the Athena cabin is the armory.

"Let's get you a weapon shall we?"

"What?"

She smiles. "Can't have a demigod without some kind of defense equipment on them."

"Oh...right." I say as if I knew this information.

She digs into all the weapons and keeps handing me them till something felt right. What fit me perfectly was a sword. It had a certain kind of metal that I've never heard of. Can't even remember what it was to be honest with you. She said that it kills monsters but won't hurt mortals. That's good to know because I'm sure I'll be lousy at this whole fighting thing.

"What about us?" I say. "Demigods, I mean."

"It can hurt us too. Kill even. But as long as you know how to fight you should be okay."

"Then I have some training to do."

She takes me back inside and leads me to the bunk beds. Mine just so happened to be the one right below hers. Then she grabs me an orange Camp Half-Blood Tee.

"Here. Get into this."

I take it and look down at the rest of my outfit. "Do I need new pants and sneakers too?" I then throw my bag onto my bed.

She smiles. "Nah. Those are perfect. It's just a rule that you have to wear the Orange shirt." She puts an extra T-shirt and orange hoodie with the same design on the bed. "For colder weather."

"Oh."

She nods. "So did you find out who you are because you were claimed or did your dad tell you who your mom was?"

When she said claimed, she means if you didn't know who your godly parent was when you arrived here that eventually you would. Or you hoped for some type of sign to who you belonged too. But apparently it didn't always happen. Could take days, sometimes weeks, maybe months, or even years. That just all depended on whether the god you were related to was even paying attention. Sadly some have too many kids to realize when they reach the age limit. As to where the unclaimed go I didn't ask, just thought I'd answer her question.

"I found out 'cause I was attacked today. My parents wanted to keep me safe as long as possible."

She slowly nod, "Sounds like great people." She says this as if she didn't have the same experience. "So where you from?" She asks as I unbuttoned my blue uniform polo I had to wear for school.

"Well I'm originally from Florida. But I just moved to Manhattan during the summer."

She nods. "Cool." I smile and pull off my shirt.

When I got it off she starts laughing. "What?"

"Your hair is a mess."

I walk over to the bathroom not too far down from our bed and look in the mirror. I half smile as I see that my hair is sticking up all over the place. I smooth it out with my hand then I put on the orange shirt.

"Mind if I ask how old you are?" She asks as I head back to her.

"Eleven."

I sit on the edge of my bed and she joins me. "Your dad never told you about mom?"

My heart skipped again and I started playing with my watch. I tended to do that when I was nervous or felt uncomfortable. "Well...the whole parentage thing is more than you think."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...don't freak okay? Because it's really hard for me to grasp on top of everything else I've found out today."

She nods. "Okay."

I take a deep breath. "I just found out that I actually have two moms." She went to say something but I didn't notice so I continued. "Not in the "my dad got married after Athena and I grew up calling her mom" type of way. I mean I was actually born from my mom." I look at her and see the confusion on her face. "I have two mortal parents and a godly one."

She's quiet for a minute. I could see her trying to come up with an answer to this weird explanation "How is that possible?"

I shrug. "Would have to ask her. All I got out of my parents was that she somehow transferred powers to me while I was in my moms stomach and that made me half god. How she did that, I couldn't tell you." I'm quiet for a second. "Now you see why my features are a bit mixed up."

Her confusion shifted to a smile. "You're more interesting than I thought."

"That's good right?"

She nods. "Oh yea." She smiles. "I think we are going to get along great." She scratches her face and notices the dirt on her hand. "I'm going to get cleaned up." She gets up. "By the way. There's two trunks under your bed. The one on the left is yours. Make yourself at home." She then heads off to the bathroom. Home is the last thing I can think this place to be.


	5. Chapter Five

**I do not take any credit for Percy Jackson.  
**

**Rick Riordan owns.**

* * *

_**Chapter Five**_

After the day I had I decided to pass on the bonfire. I could just make voices as people were heading over to it but I really wasn't up to it. All I wanted to do was sleep but that wouldn't happen because Annabeth stayed behind with me. Shocked me a bit.

"You don't want to go?"

We were both sitting on my bed, leaning up against the wall. She hands me a bag of chips. "I've been to plenty. Thought you could use the company."

I smile and take some. "That was nice of you. But I'm pretty tired. Was thinking of heading to bed."

"Oh come on newbie." I smile a bit as she said it. "The best part is seeing everyone come back after stuffing their faces with Marshmallows."

"What does that even mean?"

She smiles. "The Hermes cabin (kids of the god of messengers and thieves) get so hyper that they start messing with the Ares cabin (kids of the god of war). The mess between them is always entertaining to watch."

I laugh. "That sounds cool but I'm really tired. I mean I'm starting to struggle on keeping my eyes open"

She nods. "I guess finding out that you're magical can take a bit much out of you."

I yawn. "You're telling me." I take a sip of the soda I still had from the rest stop. "Doesn't help that my family kept this from me either."

She gives me a sad look. "Only because they had to Joey." I cross my arms and give her a look that made her know that I needed a better excuse than that. "Not knowing who you were kept you safe. Once you find out the truth you're in danger because the monsters pick up your scent."

"Even before the age of twelve?"

She nods. She had a look like she was struggling with something. Then she slowly says. "I knew practically my whole life. The monsters came after me so often that my stepmom got sick of me having them in danger all the time because of my brothers, well half-brothers. So I ran away."

My face goes to shock. "That's why you've been here since you were seven?"

She nods. "I was on my own for awhile. But eventually I found others along the way. With their help I made it safely here." She stops but she had this look like there was more to it. But I didn't push it.

I look around. "I still can't believe I ended up being the kid of the goddess who's smart. I'm no brainiac."

She laughs. "Only because being Dyslexic makes it hard to read English."

"You were the same?"

"Yes and no." I raise an eyebrow. "I was decent. I couldn't read well but I'm the type who will go for what I set my mind to so I kept trying, even if I thought I couldn't."

"I guess I couldn't handle the Dyslexia."

"Not everyone can. But don't worry. Once you start reading Greek and hanging with us, you'll get into your smarts before you know it." I start to smile but then a yawn comes out too. "Man you are tired."

"I told you!" We both start laughing.

I don't know why but it felt right being around her. It's as if I've known here all my life. Could be the fact that we are half related to each other. Or maybe because she understands what I'm going through and makes it easier, I'm not sure. But I kind of like having a sister.

When I looked back to her I saw something around her neck. I hadn't noticed till now that she was wearing a necklace. It was leather with clay beads on it. I counted three of them.

"Nice necklace."

She touches it and smiles. "You'll get it too. One bead is for each year you've been at camp."

"What's with the designs on the beads?"

"Represents a major event that happened that particular year."

Before we could get more into it we hear. "Hey loser."

We both turn to the cabin opening. Leaning up against the door with his arms crossed and a smile on his face was a tall sandy haired boy. He looked like he was in his mid to late teens.

"Hey Luke." Annabeth says with a smile. Her face was turning a bit red too. "Didn't feel like getting hyped on sugar tonight?"

He laughs and starts to walk inside. As he got closer I noticed he had blue eyes. I wondered if he was another sibling. "Isn't the same without my favorite cousin there." He said. Which answered my question.

"This is Joey." Annabeth says before I even realized he had sat down with us.

He smiles and holds out a hand. "Luke." He says. I half smile and return the shake. "Son of Hermes." He pulls his hand back. "It's a good thing you already knew who your parent was when you got here. Otherwise you would have ended up in my cabin with the rest of the unclaimed."

That reminded me that I wanted to know the answer to this situation. "Why do the unclaimed go to your cabin?"

"Well mostly because we have the most space in our cabin." He says.

I nod. "Makes sense." I think for a minute. "But why not build a cabin for the unclaimed?"

"We would. But the gods have to give us permission. Once you're here long enough you'll notice we don't get much attention from them. So we have no choice but to keep them with an already existing cabin."

Hearing that again from another demigod was a bit upsetting. Doesn't look like we get much of an relationship from our godly parent. What was even the point in having us?

"It's okay though." I look at him. "We don't mind having the unclaimed with us. We are the most generous group of people here after all. So naturally they come to us."

Annabeth starts cracking up. I look at her and see that her face was started to turn red. "That's funny coming from a son of the god of thieves." She wipes away the tears and he just glares at her.

He turns to me and I had to do my best to hide my smile. "Settling in okay?"

Kind of took me off guard so "Uh..." Is all I'm really able to get out.

He smiles. "Yea. I remember that feeling." He looks at Annabeth. "Feels like forever, doesn't it?"

She shrugs. "Feels like yesterday to me."

He laughs. "Well finding you feels like yesterday. Getting here feels like years ago."

"Because it was years ago doofus."

He puts a pretend thinking face. "Ah yes...that's right." They both start laughing.

"You guys came here together?" They both nod and I saw tension in Annabeth's eyes.

"He's one of the people I told you I met after I ran away." She looks at him. "He saved me."

He half smiles. "I can't take all the credit." It got a bit quiet. Then he turns to me. "I got here when she did. I was fourteen."

"So you're..." I think. "Sixteen?"

He smiles. "Seventeen actually. But close enough."

I watch them both. They were hiding something. There was something that happened that they didn't want to share with me. Of course I respected this because it's their business and they obviously have known each other for awhile. It was just weird sitting here knowing that they went through something that they didn't want to talk about. You could tell it was eating them up inside.

"You okay?" I hear Annabeths voice.

I look at her. "What?"

"You look really pale Joey."

"Oh."

"Probably needs sleep." Luke says.

I smile. "I'm good." I really did feel exhausted but I was enjoying talking to them.

"I think you should get to bed." Luke says.

Annabeth nods. "I agree." She gets up. "I'll see you in the morning okay."

"Uh." I nod. "Yea. Okay."

Luke puts out a hand. "Get yourself some rest. You're going to need it."

I shake his hand. "Thanks."

He smiles and turns away. "I'll wait outside." He tells Annabeth. Who nods and he takes off.

She smiles at me. "All good?" I smile and nod. She smiles back. "Goodnight Joey."

Then she has a moment of not knowing what to do. Like she was thinking "Should I shake his hand? Give him a hug?" Instead she just nods and heads towards the door. I guess that was the most I could get from someone I barely know.


	6. Chapter Six

**Rick Riordan owns Percy Jackson.**

**I do not take credit.**

* * *

**_Chapter Six_**

There I was the next morning being waken up by Annabeth around seven in the morning to tell me that breakfast was at eight and we had to make sure the place was clean for cabin inspections. So I sleepily roll out of bed and head off to the bathroom, it was pretty amazing. I had only went as far as the sinks/toilets section of the room when I hada smooth out my hair last night. But today I noticed there was another door farther down past the stales. When I opened the door it was a sight to see. The room was a long hallway with showers/bathtubs on each side, a thin wall that opened up on each end was directly in between them to divide the girls and boys side. It was tall enough for you not to see the opposite side but didn't reach the ceiling. The walls were glittered in a grayish-silver paint and had a design of Athena at the far wall at the end of the hallway. Owls were sketched onto the ceiling. My mouth was hanging open until I heard footsteps and composed myself.

When I got out Annabeth was on top of her bed, fixing the sheets. She sees me and smiles. Then she jumps down from her bunk and hands me a sheet of paper.

"This is your daily schedule."

I look down at it. It said...

_Name: Joey Rodgers_

_Species: Demigod_

_Parent: Athena_

_Age: 11_

_Years here: 0_

_Monday_

_8:00 - 9am: Breakfast and Cabin Inspection_

_9:00 - 10:30am: Art Class_

_10:30 - 11am: Polish Armor_

_11:00 - 12:00pm: Greek Mythology_

_12:00 - 12:30pm: Prepare Lunch_

_12:30 - 1:30pm: Lunch_

_1:30 - 3:30pm: Archery_

_3:30 - 6pm: Free Time (Can send letters home till 5)_

_6:00 - 7:00pm: Dinner_

_7:00 - 9:00pm: Basketball_

_9:00 - 10:00pm: Campfire Singalong_

_Tuesday_

_8:00 - 9am: Breakfast and Cabin Inspection_

_9:00 - 10:30am: Javelin Throwing_

_10:30 - 11am: Storage Check_

_11:00 - 12:00pm: Greek Mythology_

_12:00 - 12:30pm: Cabin Clean Up_

_12:30 - 1:30pm: Lunch_

_1:30 - 3:30pm: Weapon Making_

_3:30 - 5:00pm: Basketball_

_5:00 - 6pm: Free Time_

_6:00 - 7:00pm: Dinner_

_7:00 - 9:00pm: Unarmed Combat_

_9:00 - 10:00pm: Campfire Singalong_

_Wednesday_

_8:00 - 9am: Breakfast and Cabin Inspection_

_9:00 - 10:30am: Ancient Greek_

_10:30 - 11am: Clean Stables_

_11:00 - 12:00pm: Sword Skills_

_12:00 - 12:30pm: Greek Mythology_

_12:30 - 1:30pm: Lunch_

_1:30 - 3:30pm: Tracking Skills_

_3:30 - 5:00pm: Laundry_

_5:00 - 6pm: Free Time_

_6:00 - 7:00pm: Dinner_

_7:00 - 9:00pm: Archery_

_9:00 - 10:00pm: Campfire Singalong_

_Thursday_

_8:00 - 9am: Breakfast and Cabin Inspection_

_9:00 - 10:30am: Art Class_

_10:30 - 11am: Pick Strawberries from the field_

_11:00 - 12:00pm: Monster Techniques_

_12:00 - 12:30pm: Greek Mythology_

_12:30 - 1:30pm: Lunch_

_1:30 - 3:30pm: Wood Chopping_

_3:30 - 5:00pm: Wrestling_

_5:00 - 6pm: Free Time_

_6:00 - 7:00pm: Dinner_

_7:00 - 9:00pm: Strength Training_

_9:00 - 10:00pm: Campfire Singalong_

_Friday_

_8:00 - 9am: Breakfast and Cabin Inspection_

_9:00 - 10:30am: Ancient Greek_

_10:30 - 11am: Polishing Armor_

_11:00 - 12:00pm: Pegasus Riding_

_12:00 - 12:30pm: Greek Mythology_

_12:30 - 1:30pm: Lunch_

_1:30 - 3:30pm: Firework Making_

_3:30 - 5:00pm: Volleyball_

_5:00 - 6pm: Free Time_

_6:00 - 7:00pm: Dinner_

_7:00 - 9:00pm: Capture the Flag_

_9:00 - 10:00pm: Campfire Singalong_

_Morning Cabin Inspections - Carried out by senior camp counselors in rotation_

_Ancient Greek/Greek Mythology - Taught by Annabeth or Chiron_

_Sword Fighting - At the arena_

_Weapon Making - At the Forge with Hephaestus Cabin _(kids of the god of fire and crafts)

_Archery - With Chiron_

_Wrestling - With Clarisse_

My heart sank when I saw that I had to be in the air. Pegasus riding had to be flying on it right?

My face must have given something away. "What is it?" She asks.

I look up at her and saw she was now making my bed. "I could have done that."

She smiles. "I'm a neat freak. I don't mind." I half smile. "So what's wrong?" She fixes the last corner and walks closer.

I look back down at the schedule. "I don't like heights." I look at her, hoping she wasn't laughing at me. But she wasn't. "I have Pegasus riding."

She grabs it from me. "We can always talk to Chiron but I think facing your fears makes you look better."

"You mean for everyone here in camp?" She nods. "Why?"

"Makes it easier to fit in."

I shrug. "I appreciate it but I don't need the attention while making a fool of myself."

She nods. "Then if you'd like we can go to Chiron to see if he can switch you out. But if you go on a quest you need to be ready for this. You never know what will come."

I think. "Fine...I'll give it a shot. But if I don't like it..."

"I'll take you straight to Chiron." She smiles.

I half smile back. "Thanks."

She nods. "What are sisters for?"

I smile. "I've never had a sister."

She laughs. "Well now you have plenty." I laugh. "Plus it's on Fridays only. Once a week. Don't sweat it so much."

I start turning a bit red. "Right."

She smiles. "Oh by the way." She hands me back my schedule. "You have Ancient Greek and Greek Mythology with me."

"With you?" She nods. "As in you teach me yourself?" She half smiles and nods again. "But I already know about both. My dad's a College Professor."

She smiles. "I doubt you know Ancient Greek."

"As in the language?" She nods. "Oh. Then no."

She laughs. "Thought so. As for the Greek Mythology we can either tell Chiron to switch you into something else. Or it can be a free period for both of us." She gives me a look and I already know what she means.

I nod. "Free period it is."

She laughs. "Oh. And Wrestling is with Clarisse. She's from the Ares cabin."

"So that makes her our first cousin since her dad is Athena's half brother."

She smiles. "You're right. You do know your Mythology." I half smile. "But don't think too much into it. Because if you aren't from the same cabin then it's okay if you date each other." I put a disgusted face.

The thing with demigods is you are all related in some way. The gods have children with their family members. So that makes the kids of the gods siblings or cousins too. Whether full or half god you are still related. Sometimes even first cousins. It's just a weird family tree.

She laughs at my reaction. "See. But my point is, Clarisse is head leader so they follow her lead with basically everything. I'd watch out for her. She likes to pick on the new kids. Especially if they aren't the strongest looking."

"Meaning she's going to have a blast with me."

She half smiles. "Just don't talk back till you think you can handle her. She doesn't like to be out shinned." She thinks. "Unless you feel you got the guts to do it now. Then go for it." I put a sly smile and she laughs.

"Hey Annabeth!"

We turn to the voice. A blond haired kid that look anywhere from Annabeth's to my age was running over to us. "That's Malcolm." She says. "He's my deputy."

"Deputy?"

She nods. "I'm head leader for Athena's cabin." She sees my face and smiles. "I've been here the longest so that automatically makes me leader." I go to say something. "First rule in battle strategy Joey." I watch her. "Don't ask so many questions."

I half laugh as Malcolm gets to us. "Anna..." He takes a breath. "Annabeth. Robert and Luke are at it again."

She roles her eyes. "This early in the morning?" He nods. "Alright. I'll be right there." He nods and runs off.

"Whats going on?" I ask.

She looks at me. "Robert is one of our siblings. He likes to start trouble. Most of the time with Luke and Ralph from Apollos cabin (kids of the god of healing, art, music and more talents) because they are the only ones who stand up to him. It's becoming a problem." She smiles. "Nothing to worry about though. You finish getting ready and I'll take care of it. I'll meet you in front of the cabin when you're done." Then she takes off.

And this my friends, is where I start to tell my story from my point of view in present time. You are caught up and will be just as in the moment as I will be. Let's see how things go from here. Because this is no normal camp as you've noticed, and I am no normal boy. This is all going to be interestingly awesome.


	7. Chapter Seven

**I do not own Percy Jackon. **

**Rick Riordan does.**

* * *

_**Chapter Seven**_

"Is it just me or does she act like she's older than most of the kids here?" I asked Franky after breakfast.

I think back to when I walked to the pavilion with Annabeth after she took care of things. There were kids all over the place. The tables were covered with a white and purple tablecloth. Some tables were full and others either weren't or barely had anyone. Apparently each table is divided by cabin. You're only allowed to sit and eat with your siblings. Against the rules to eat with anyone else. Only satyrs have the rights to sit at any table they felt like. I hoped Franky would sit with us. Then there was a table closer to the end of the pavilion where the directors of the camp were sitting. Chiron was there with another man, satyrs and two other boys. Which I found out were Dionysus kids and the man that was sitting with Chiron was Dionysus himself.

Our table seemed to be very hyperactive. Then again almost everyone has ADHD so I guess that's an understatement of how crazy it actually is. Now when it comes to the meals they apparently like to keep you on a diet. They had grapes, cheese, and bread. Basically anything along those lines. Then asomething I never heard of called "Extra lean nymph-cut barbecue." I heard one of the boys say from a conversation he was having with someone about being excited for lunch. Yea I don't know either. But you could ask whatever you wanted to drink. You talked to the cup and what you wanted popped up. Even though it was said that Coke doesn't have the same flavor. But luckily it's breakfast so I stuck with some orange juice.

So they have this thing where you have to give a scrap of food to a bonfire that's in the middle of the pavilion. At the beginning of every meal each cabin takes a turn going up to the fire and dropping in a bit of their food as an offering for the gods. I guess out of respect or something. But I don't see why we should since they don't seem to do the same for their kids.

Just after Franky came to sit at my table (which I was relieved about) the girl Annabeth talked about earlier named Clarisse said something that got the whole table going. I didn't hear what she said but it was enough that Annabeth got involved. She handled the situation like an adult and it shocked me for a nine year old.

"Who? Annabeth?" Franky asks. I nod and he laughs. "Yea. She's pretty mature for her age."

"But why?" I look over to the ocean as we walked the beach.

He shrugs. "No one outside Athena's cabin really takes her seriously because she's one of the youngest and smallest at camp." He jumps over a log then sits on it. "With the exception of Robert who only listens to her because she's head. But everyone knows if he had the choice he wouldn't bother paying attention to a nine year old."

"I see why she seems tough." He nods. "She should be able to act her age though."

"She does with whoever she's comfortable with." I sit next to him. "Sometimes me, but there are times where she can be a bit uptight or shy. But she is usually more herself with Luke and their friend Grover. He's the satyr that saved them." I nod. "And some of the Athena kids she can get along with too. But not as much as Grover and Luke."

"She seemed okay with me."

He smiles and takes off his hat to wipe the sweat building on his forehead from under his bangs. He has silky-short red hair that is longer than a buzz cut but not so long that he looked like a skater. Horns were sticking out of his head. No wonder why he had a medical note for why he could keep his hat on during school. He also was wearing the same orange shirt as the rest of us, with the exception of not wearing pants. It was weird seeing him in his natural state.

"Then she feels comfortable with you. That's rare with her."

I nod and think. "So Robert is always starting trouble?"

He nods. "Robert is a spoiled rich kid."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. He came around in the beginning of last school year. Like yourself he had no idea about who he was and obviously was freaked about it. So naturally we expected a bit of a hard time. But he also isn't used to the lifestyle of doing things himself so that just makes him miserable. If you didn't know any better you'd think he was part of the Ares cabin."

"Oh joy."

He laughs. "It just takes some getting used to." He looks to the horizon. "What's your schedule for today?"

I take out my list and look under Thursday. "Art Class. Picking Strawberries. Monster Techniques. Greek Mythology. Lunch. Wood Chopping. Wrestling. Free Time. Dinner. Strength Training. Campfire Singalong."

He nods. "Sounds like a mellow day." He thinks. "Well..."

"Except wrestling?"

"How did you..."

"Annabeth says that one of the girls from Ares is the one who teaches us. Apparently she isn't the nicest."

"Isn't the nicest is a kinder way of putting it."

"Is she really that bad?"

He watches me. "Joey...she's basically a volcano ready to explode every time you get near her."

My mouth starts to curl into a smile as I tempted to hide my laugh. "What?"

He wasn't looking at me now. So he didn't notice my urge to crack up. "I'm serious. She's a ticking time bomb. Doesn't matter if she's in a bad mood or not she'll always find a way to make your day horrible."

"Then I'll try not to give her a reason to bother me."

"Good luck with that."

"Frank. You're so not helping."

He smiles. "Sorry."

Starting my day in art wasn't too bad. This is one of the things I'm actually good at so I had no problem thinking of something to draw. Happened to be that the first thing that popped into my head was the memory of the Minotaur attacking us at the rest stop yesterday.

Halfway through I felt someone standing behind me. "Wow."

I turn around and see a girl smiling at me. "Uh." Is all I'm able to get out.

She smiles. It was so bright it felt like the sun was reflecting off them. She has light brown hair that was braided over her shoulder, side bangs and a random streak of blue could be seen in her braid as the sun shined on it. Her pale skin made me notice that I wasn't as light as I thought I was from all the kids who went to my school. I was one of the few light skinned kids there, inculding Franky.

"Sorry." She says. "I just wanted to tell you that you're drawing is really good."

It actually wasn't finished yet. The most I got was a half sketched Minotaur with Franky standing behind the huge monster as he yelled at it about to throw whatever it was he had in his hand. I was about to start drawing myself and what would be my brothers standing in front looking up at it. But unless you asked who they were you wouldn't know it was going to be us because I was just going to draw the back of our heads.

I hadn't noticed till now that my mouth was half open as I stared at her. Her eyes were bright green and seemed to be very hypnotizing, because I couldn't look away. Then I caught myself and smiled. "Oh. Thanks." It got quiet for a second. "I'm Joey." I say a bit shy.

Her eyes twinkled as she smiled. "I'm Ryan. Daughter of Apollo."

I half smile. It's really weird that when someone introduces themselves they have to add whose kid they belong to. However, I played along. "Son of Athena."

"Sweet." I smile. "Just got here?"

I nod. "Yesterday."

"Must have had a rough time getting here." I raise an eyebrow. "Got a cut on your face."

"Oh yea."

She laughs a bit. "You know Apollo kids are pretty handy at healing."

I nod. "Yea I know. But that's okay. I feel tough."

She laughs. This time it was a genuine laugh. Not the awkward kind that you make to get rid of the tension. It was so legit that I couldn't help but smile at how cute she sounded. Wait...what am I saying?

She wipes some tears out of her eyes. "So how old are you?"

She sits down next to me and I felt a tingling sensation in my stomach. "Uh." I lose my train of thought for a second. "I'm eleven...you?"

"Thirteen."

"Ry!"

We both look. A boy was walking over. "That's my brother Ralph." She says.

"Oh right. My half sister Annabeth told me that our half brother Robert likes to pick fights with your half brother." Now that I think about it, it seems easier just to say brother or sister rather than half. I mean they are half but still, it's confusing and kind of a mouth full.

She looks at me "Yea. Robert's a handful alright." I half laugh. "But Ralph is actually my full brother. We are twins."

"Oh." It had never crossed my mind that demigods could be twins. Or full siblings for that matter.

"What's going on Ralphy?" She says when he gets to us.

He shrugs. "Oh nothing. Just got back from The Big House."

"What happened?"

He shakes his head from what seemed to be frustration. "Robert's what happened. He thinks someone stole his sword and swears it was either me or Luke."

She roles her eyes. "He really needs to grow up." She looks at me. "No offense."

I shrug. "He may be my brother but I haven't even met him yet."

She laughs and nods. "True." Ralph was eyeing me. "Oh, Ralphy. This is Joey. He got here yesterday."

He puts out a hand and I don't hesitate to shake back. "I see you have the pleasure of being Roberts brother."

"Guess so."

"Good luck."

"Ralphy!" Ryan half yells, half laughs. "Don't be mean."

He smiles. "Oh you know you were thinking the same thing."

She tries to hide a laugh. "Of course not!"

We all laugh and it was actually comforting. I mean to know that they were nice enough to come up to me and be a friend rather than being someone who was trying to mess with me like in my other schools made me feel better. These kids were like me. I didn't know who I was for my whole life, still really don't but at least I have people like me who will understand everything I'm about to go through. I guess blood is thicker than anything else.


	8. Chapter Eight

**I do not own or take credit for Percy Jackson.**

**Rick Riordan owns everything.**

**NOTE TO ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN KEEPING UP: Incase you didn't see the update I posted on the first chapter, I changed the character of Grover into a satyr named Franky. Someone pointed out that Joey wouldn't have been Grover's second chance at saving a demigod so I decided to replaced Grover's part into a new character. Everything from that storyline is the same except for a few details that was noticeably for Grover's character.**

* * *

_**Chapter Eight**_

By the time I got to Greek Mythology I was in a pretty good mood. Freaked out a bit because Monster Techniques was a bit more than I could swallow, but still in a good mood. They gave me a book and as I looked through it the images got a little more graphic than I was expecting.

"Slicing their heads usually helps with most monsters." A kid about sixteen from Ares cabin had said. The look in his eyes though we're a bit much. He looked so greedy for battle that I knew I probably should keep my distance.

A girl around his age was standing beside him. "If you have Celestial Bronze..."

"That's the metal I couldn't remember!" I think to myself as I remembered Annabeth saying last night about the type of metal our weapons were made of.

"There's no need for that much violence Jeremy." I hear her finish.

"Only because you're Aphrodite's kid and don't care much for battle unless it has to do with getting a guys attention Steph."

She crosses her arms. "Shut up." She looked pretty mad but at the same time she had a shy smile.

To be honest she didn't look like a child of Aphrodite at all. She wasn't wearing makeup, her black hair was up in a ponytail rather than down and flowy like most of the girls in that cabin did. I mean, she was wearing the same Orange T-shirt as recommended but was a bit too big for her. She had baggy black basketball shorts that just reached her knees and bright blue high top sneakers. Completely the opposite from her sisters, that's for sure.

"Ready bro?"

I look over from my bed as Annabeth walks in. Since I knew pretty much everything there is to know about the Myths of the Greek gods she agreed to help me look up the Roman Mythology. You'd think it was the same but it's actually a bit different. I mean same gods but some of their names are different. Same goes for their personalities. I knew a good amount about them too but she said that Chiron insisted that we had to do something to pass the time.

"One minute." I say as she sits down on the bottom of my bed at my feet. "Let me beat this level." I was playing on the new Gameboy Advance my parents had gotten me a few weeks ago.

"What game?" She asks.

"Super Mario Brothers."

She laughs. "Seriously?"

"Hey don't make fun."

She tries to hold in her laugh. "Isn't that a game from like the 1800's?"

"Ha ha...very funny." She smiles. "It may be older than us but it's still a good ga...YES!" I had jumped onto the very top of the flag pole. "Extra points!"

She gives me a look. "You're such a dork."

"Says the nine year old brainiac."

She starts turning red. "Shut up." I laugh. "Come on. Let's go hang out by the lake. Calmer atmosphere."

I look around and see a few kids shooting nerf bullets at each other. "Yea. And them having ADHD doesn't help either."

She laughs. "I agree. You know you're like the only one in camp who doesn't have both disabilities."

"Really?" She nods. "Is that good or bad?"

"Well...ADHD usually helps with your fighting but it can also be a handful."

"Yea. That's what Jeremy said during Monster Techniques."

"Did he behave himself?"

"Uh. Well he told us to slice monsters heads off."

She nods. "That's better than he usually is."

"Oh. Okay." She laughs. "Well to make up for it I have asthma ."

"That's different."

I nod. "Different seems to be my thing."

She half smiles and we head out the door.

The camp wasn't too far from the cabins. So on our walk we ran into the camp director Mr. D, also known as Dionysus. Which to anyone familiar with Greek Mythology he used to be a demigod. Then they offered him to be a god. He's the son of Zeus, which would make him my uncle because he's Athena's brother. This whole having so many family members thing is so hard to keep up with. But I hear he's one of the hardest people to get along with.

"Hello Annabell." He says lazily.

She gives me an annoyed look. "It's Annabeth."

He wasn't paying attention as he looks at me. "Rodger right?"

"Uh. Well. It's Joey actually. _Rodgers_..." I correct him quickly, trying not to be rude. "Is my last name."

He nods. "Yes of course." He sounded bored now but he looks me up and down. "Heard your unique story of your parents."

"Oh, uh."

"Very interesting to me."

"Uhhh...thanks?"

He smiles but it seemed forced. "You're different. That's what makes you a great asset to our camp. As I do hate you demigods..." My mouth half drops. "I expect some great things from you Johnny."

"Joey." I say.

"Mr. D!" Someone yells from behind us.

He looks over our heads and we turn too. "That's Grover." She whispers.

Across the way there was a short young goat boy around our age (maybe?) wearing a Camp t-shirt but no pants. He was waving our way.

"Ugh. I have to go." Mr. D says and looks back down to us and nods in a goodbye "Annabell. Jerry." Then starts to walk off.

"Annabeth..." She says through gritted teeth.

While at the same time I said. " _Joey_."

"Yea, yea. Whatever." He says as he waves his hand over his shoulder from annoyance.

"He can never get names right unless he likes you." She says.

I look at her. "Interesting uncle of ours."

She half laughs. "Again...thinking to much into the whole being family thing."

I smile a bit. "So we aren't allowed to call him Uncle D?"

She laughs, but it was one of those laughs where once she started she couldn't stop. Her laugh was so contagious that I started cracking up myself. Finally she wipes off the tears of laughter and shakes her head. "Ohh man no. He'll probably turn you into a monkey or something."

I put my thinking face and nod. "I've always wanted to be a monkey."

Her mouth curls into a smile. But you could tell she was trying to hide it. "You're so weird!" She starts cracking up.

"That's me. Your weird older brother."

She smiles. "Well come on. Let's get to the lake."

When we get there we started off studying about the Romans, but then it turned into us fooling around. I'm really liking this whole having a sister thing. It's not what I expected exactly but it's pretty cool.

After, we went to lunch. It was mellow, or as mellow as you can get with hyper demigods. Then there was wood chopping. It wasn't much to it, just what the title said, chopping up some wood. Now it was time for wrestling and as Annabeth and Franky both said, it was a bit of a rough time.

"Brad!" Clarisse yells.

She looked to be around fourteen, but she was taller than you'd expect from someone in that age group. She also had a bit of muscle. I've never seen a girl that strong before, but I guess that's what happens when you are the kid of the war god.

"Help me demonstrate."

A kid a bit smaller than her walks out of the crowd. He has the same "I want to destroy you" look that any Ares kid had. Which made it obvious as soon as he walked up which god he belonged to. I may have only been here for barely a day but I've figured out which kids to stay away from.

As soon as he walked to her she wasted no time in trying to tackle him to the ground. But for a small kid he managed to keep himself up. They throw a few punches at each other but the only one who kept getting hit was Brad. So on the last hit he took from her was so hard he went down, clutching his stomach.

She smiles at him. But if it was friendly it didn't look like it. "Good job."

She helps him up and he gets back into the crowd. He has a smile on his face, it was like it didn't even phase him.

"Okay." She starts to pace back and forth. "For the newbie here." She scans us and lays eyes on me, half smiling. "You are all going to get a dummy." She points over to a wall with a line of dummies in front of it. "They fight back. So make sure you duck when you have to."

"I'm hating this class already." I think to myself.

"Ten minutes of fighting with them and then I will pair everyone up with a partner."

"Yep. I'm really not liking this."

I have free time next. So when I got back to the cabin I had to jump into the shower to help with my soreness. I got paired with Brad, who was more skilled than I thought so I had a run for my money. I don't think I did too bad but my whole body hurt. When I got out I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see that I had a black eye, which wasn't even from Brad. I didn't duck fast enough when I was practicing with the dummy.

When I walked out of the bathroom I got into bed, and as soon as I lay my head on my pillow I fall asleep.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Rick Riordan owns Percy Jackson.**

**I do not take credit.**

**Just a reminder that Franky is Joey's satyr best friend that I replace Grover with.**

* * *

_**Chapter Nine**_

"Joey." I feel someone shaking me. "Joey?"

"Mmm." I sleepily get out.

"It's almost time for dinner."

I open my eyes and see I'm facing the wall so I roll over. Annabeth was smiling at me, but then as quickly it dropped.

"What happened to you?"

I stretch and yawn. "Wrestling."

"Did Clarisse..."

I shake my head. "No. I got paired with her brother Brad. But that's not who gave me the black eye." She raises an eyebrow. "I was practicing with a dummy and didn't duck fast enough."

She was trying to hold in a smile but it didn't work so well. "We have a lot to get you caught up with."

"Thanks for the confidence."

She laughs. "Everyone starts at the bottom Joey. Don't be so upset about it."

I rub my eyes, flinching a bit from the pain as the pressure hurt my bad eye. "Think I could skip on dinner?"

She shakes her head. "After a fight it's usually good to get some food in you." She sits next to me. "I'm going to take a quick shower. You can rest till I come back but then you have to get up."

I nod and yawn. "Yes mom."

She half smiles. "I'll be right back."

I was awake when she came back. There was a lot of commotion coming from outside and inside the cabin that I was more half asleep than actually sleeping.

"Hiya!" You could hear someone yell from outside. "Yea that's right you little demigods. Run on off now before I hit you with my bat!"

"Who in the world is that?" I yawn and stretch as she comes into view.

She was drying her wavy wet blond hair with a towel. "That's Gleeson Hedge. He's a satyr."

"Sounds scary."

She cracks up. "Not even. He's barely taller than us. Only reason why people think twice is because he carries a bat around and threatens to hit you with it."

"Really?"

She nods. "He taps into his battle part of being a satyr and takes it a bit too seriously sometimes."

"If he's gonna hit you with a bat it's more than a little serious."

She laughs a bit. "He likes rules to be followed. Get him upset and you'll be on his bad side for awhile."

"Stop laughing you barbarians!" We hear Gleeson. "Just because you are the kids of the war god _does not mean_ I won't give you a beating!"

I try to hold in a laugh. "I kind of like that dude. He's funny."

"Then it looks like you'll have nothing to worry about."

He starts to say a few more things (that I will not repeat) at whoever he was yelling at and I couldn't help but crack up.

"He seems like a handful."

"You have no idea." She says and I laugh. "He has his moments of you wanting to give him a good kick but he's good at his job. He gets demigods here safe." I nod as she talks. "This morning he brought a demigod around your age."

"Well at least he's useful."

"Yea. But as you said, a major handful."

"I'm warning you Brad Brown, I'll hit you!" We hear the satyr.

I look at her, half smiling. "I can't see why."

She half laughs. "The good thing about him being around is that he's the only one who can have a bit of control over Clarisse."

I raise an eyebrow. "Why?"

"He was her protector. She owes him." She tosses aside her towel over towards a wall with a pile of towels filling out of the hamper, then sits on my bed. I was still laying down under my covers so I had to scoot up into a sitting position so she wouldn't squish my feet.

"You guys seem to have it all under control when it comes to dirty stuff." I say sarcastically but I tried to keep as much of a straight face as possible.

She looks at it as she put her hair into a side ponytail. "Well, we have a better system for the clothes. We all have separate bunks so it's easier to separate everything. Me and you share that one by the nightstand behind your headrest."

I look over, just noticing that in fact there was a hamper next to it. "Oh. Right." She half laughs. "What I'm really glad about is that there are outlets. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to use my Gameboy till I get home."

"It wasn't always like that. Over the years demigods upgraded the cabin a bit to go with the era they are in."

"I feel bad for the ones who didn't have Air Conditioning."

"There are pictures of the cabin back in the sixties...I think. Instead of bunks it was just couches and comfy chairs with weird looking designs, sleeping bags on the floor too."

"So...like the hippie generation?"

She nods. "Yea. Exactly."

I slowly nod. "I'll stick with the electronic generation."

"Makes sense since you seem to be glued to that Gameboy of yours."

"For your information. I am not glued to my Gameboy, thank you." It's a quick pause. "You know...'cause I don't have it in my hand right _now_." I put a lot of emotion into the word now with a goofy face and she looked like she was doing all she could not to laugh, which made me start to smile. "Plus you've only known me for a day. Why would you think I'm glued to a piece of object that I've only played once the whole day I've been here?"

She shrugs. "Just a really good guess." She looks at me like she had laser eyes and was scanning me. "You seem like one of those people who will play for so long that by the time you leave your room you look like a bomb went off next to you."

"What does that even mean..."

"That when you're "in the zone" your hair is all over the place and your shirt is probably stained with Cheetos and whatever else you decided to stuff your face with while refusing to come out."

My mouth drops but then I recover just as quickly. "What? No...that's crazy."

A slight smile starts to come through the corner of her mouth. "I'm sure it's not."

I open my mouth but then slowly close it. "Are Athena's kids psychic too?"

She laughs and shakes her head. "No. But that would just make us more awesome."

I nod. "Oh I totally agree!"

After dinner I spotted Franky talking to Chiron. He looked a bit upset but I didn't bother him. What got me concerned was the sadness in his eyes when he caught sight of me walking back to the cabins. Something was up and I was sure I was not going to like it. Sure enough the news sucked when he got to me at the singalong.

"I have bad news man." I really hated when people started conversations like that.

"What's it about?" I was trying not to freak because he's done this before. He gets all worked up about things that he says is bad then turns out to be not as bad as he made it seem. But I had a bad feeling about this one.

He takes a deep breath and looks at the fire. "Chiron...well. He's assigned me to a new job."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I won't be around for the rest of the summer. So I may not see you till next time you're at camp.

"Dude. That's really dropping a bomb."

"Yea. Never know when it's coming. Sometimes satyrs can be here awhile and other times they're gone as soon as the job is done."

I slowly nod. "Where you headed?"

"Pennsylvania."

"You know we never really talked about how you guys do it."

"Do what?" He raises his eyebrow.

"How you know who the demigod is. Does Chiron just tell you."

He laughs a bit and shakes his head. "Oh. No. Chiron doesn't know. Nobody knows who the demigod is. The point of a satyr finding them is because we can smell their scent. Like how monsters do."

"So when you saw me you knew?"

He shakes his head. "Not at first. We smell the demigod but it's not like a green arrow goes above you're head pointing at you with words saying d_emigod here_..."

I had to hold in a laugh, because I could imagine something like that happening. I mean it wouldn't have surprised me at this point. He didn't notice my temptation to crack up as he continues.

"We just have to look out for the signs and hope we get it right. I knew there was a possibility you were one when we met but there had been a lot of kids around at the park that day so I couldn't be sure. I didn't figure it out till I noticed a Fury randomly watching you from a tree one day."

My face drops. "A Fury?" He nods. "I never saw a Fury."

"That's because you weren't looking. Your eyes didn't see through the mist at the time. But trust me, it wasn't the first time the Fury was there. It kept following you."

"That's just creepy."

He nods. "Well, monsters aren't exactly the smartest." It gets quiet for a second. "Well I have to start packing. I leave in the morning."

I put out a hand. "Keep in touch okay?"

He smiles and shakes my hand. "I'll do my best. Don't get into any trouble."

"The black eye may help the cause."

He laughs. "Maybe." He starts to back up. "Talk to you later."


	10. Chapter Ten

**I do not own Percy Jackson.  
**

**It belongs to Rick Riordan.**

**Sorry for taking so long to update.**

* * *

_**Chapter Ten**_

I went to bed that night a bit distracted, just staring at the wall as I heard the light snores of the other kids around the cabin. My thoughts were a bit all over the place now. First my parents sent me here against my will and now that I got used to the idea of being here a bit more, my best friend was going to be in a different state by tomorrow. My excitement for being here had faded very quickly in the matter of a day.

I turn over onto my back and look up at the bottom of Annabeths bed. I could see the light of here lamp shinning in the corner. I hesitate for a minute but then I slowly stand on my bed and peak my head up so I could look through the railing of hers. I start to smile to myself as I noticed she had fallen asleep with a book in her hands. I grab the book and put it over with the rest of her books on the shelf next to her bunk, then switch off the light.

Since I couldn't sleep I decide to head out of the cabin and sit on one of the stone benches surrounding the bonfire pit. The only thing that was lighting up the outside of the cabins was the torches that were around the U shaped space.

"Joey?" I turn around. It's Ryan. "You okay?"

I smile a bit. "Yea. Just couldn't sleep."

She nods. "Me either. I was at the lake." She sits next to me. "How was..." Her eyes start to dart around my face. "What happened to your eye?"

I touch it out of an reaction. "Wrestling."

"They should really rethink this whole fighting against each other thing."

"How else do you learn to fight?" She didn't say anything. "Plus it's like being in sports outside of camp."

She nods. "That's true." She watches me. "Didn't want to get that healed?"

"I asked, but Annabeth said that the infirmary is only for emergencies. This isn't so bad."

She nods. "Oh yea."

I half smile. "So what were you saying?" I get out after an awkward silence.

"Oh." She starts. "How was your first day?"

I shrug. "I've never been to a camp before but I'm sure this isn't on a daily schedule for regular camps."

She half laughs. "Yea. Almost getting killed by monsters is most definitely not the norm." My face drops and she probably noticed the scared look on my face. "Did...no one told you that for Monster Techniques you'd actually be trained to fight monsters _with_ monsters?" I shake my head. "Oops."

"I was told that monsters couldn't get through the barrier. That I would be safe from monsters here. Not getting trained with them."

"Well. Monsters aren't allowed past the barrier. It's just they need them so we can get used to it and know what to expect. So if they are summoned they can get inside." I give her a look. "But there are always professionals who know what they are doing around to protect us if anything goes wrong."

"Good to know." I say sarcastically.

She smiles. "This is the safest place for demigods. Always has been. Don't worry so much about it. Chiron knows what he's doing."

We sat there for awhile longer, just talking. Which was surprising to me that I could find anything to talk about without making a fool of myself. I've never been the best at talking to older girls, the fact I could with her was weird.

I'm not sure what time it was but it felt like we had been talking forever. Then a cracking sound comes and we turn towards it. There's a platinum blond, medium built, lightly tanned kid walking over from the direction of where The Big House is. He had kind of a mean look as he spotted us and all I could think was "Uh oh." But he didn't bother to say a word or bother us, so I watched as he walked into the Athena Cabin. I knew he looked familiar, I saw him earlier around camp but I didn't even realize that he was one of my brothers. Everyone was doing their own things throughout the day and I was so overwhelmed that I never had the chance to get introduced to my other siblings. Which is sad because there are only ten of us in that cabin.

"That's Robert." She whispers to me.

I turn to her. "That's the kid everyone hates because he's rich?"

"It's not because he's rich Joey. It's because he's a snob. He acts like he's better than everyone and tries to get others to do things for him. If it wasn't for his attitude I wouldn't have a problem with him."

"How old is he?"

"Fourteen I think."

"He's big for fourteen."

"Yea. And Clarisse is big for a twelve year old."

"She's _twelve_?" She nods. "She doesn't..."

"Once you are here long enough you'll realize that it's expected from the Ares kids to look that away. Even at a young age."

I slowly nod. "Right."

"As for Robert..." She continues. "Athena's sons are usually muscular. Not all but some build themselves to get to that point. He was one of them."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Probably to fit in."

"Well I'm fast, I'm good with that."

She laughs. "Don't change for anyone."

I nod. "You got it."

"Well." She starts to get up. "Need to get some sleep. Won't be able to wake up if I stay up any longer."

I stand too and nod. "Right. Well I'll see you around then."

She smiles. "Yes you will." She kisses me on the cheek and my face turns super hot. "Sweet dreams Joey." And she walks away.

Man this girl is going to kill me.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Percy Jackson belongs to Rick Riordan.  
**

**I do not own or take credit.**

* * *

_**Chapter Eleven**_

It's Friday. Now usually Friday's would make me excited because these were the relaxing days to start the weekend and I didn't have to worry about going to school for the next couple days. But I'm in a camp with magical people and I have no idea what to expect when I wake up.

I keep forgetting I'm here so there's a moments confusion when my eyes open in the morning and I notice that I'm not in my own room. The most I'm able to remember is that I have to be out of this cabin by eight so I could get to breakfast and give them time to inspect our cabins...again. Like seriously? Can't they do that once a week or something? Making sure the cabin is clean all the time is going to get annoying. My room was almost always a mess at home.

I sat at the table a bit bummed out. Franky was gone by the time I woke up and it sucked that last night was our official goodbye. But I know it's his job so I should be happy that he can go out there and still look for others like me. He's got a good thing going for him.

"Know what's after breakfast?" Annabeth sits in the seat next to me.

"Lunch?"

She watches me and sees that not even a smile crept up. "You're serious?"

I give a confused look. "Well unless there's a new meal plan that I don't know about, then yes."

She starts to laugh. "No. There's no new meal plan. But I meant based off your schedule for today."

"Oh!" I tried to sound hyped up about it but it just made me sound like an idiot. "Right. Ancient Greek. Of course."

"Are you okay?"

"Yea. I'm fine." I eat a mouthful of my breakfast. "I mean. My best friend only left to befriend another demigod today but everything is A okay."

"Aw. Is Josephina missing their other half."

Clarisse came into view in front of us. She had a smile on her face but I honestly had no idea who she was looking at. I kept turning in different directions trying to figure out who she was talking about.

"Doofus. I'm talking to you."

I start to turn red. "Is there a reason why you're calling me Josephina?"

She puts on a thinking face and it kind of looked like it hurt to use her brain. I had to hold back a smile as that thought worked through my head.

"Actually yes. You were such a girl during wrestling that it's a waste to keep calling you a boy." The Ares kids with her start to laugh and she smiles. "Plus you and Franky were so attached to each other he might as well be your boyfriend."

I clench my jaw and start to squeeze my hands into a fist. The hand with my spoon actually hurt a lot because of how hard I was squeezing but I wasn't going to let her know that.

"First of all." I start, trying to stay calm. "My name is Joey, not Joseph. So the whole "Josephina" thing doesn't work." She gives me a look like she wanted to hit me, which I'm sure is exactly what she's thinking. "And let me get this straight." I didn't take my eyes off her. "You thought I acted too much like a girl because why? I couldn't hit Brad?"

She starts to nod, her mood shifting to what I could only guess was her happy face. "Someone learned how to use their itty bitty brain!" They all start laughing.

Some of the other demigods closest to our table started looking over our way. I take a deep breath as I feel myself ready to jump out of this seat and swing. I had what I wanted to say ready to go but I knew I'd regret it as soon as I got it out. But I didn't want her and her siblings thinking just because I'm small that I would let them pick on me. Annabeth told me if I was up to challenging her than to do so. I guess this is the moment.

"So then what does that make you?"

She raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"You say I'm a girl for not being able to fight. But then does that make you a boy because you _can_ fight?"

In my head I heard the sound of the victory song swelling the room. I was very proud of myself. But then I noticed the angry look on her face and realized that there was no victory music. Instead it was the sound of my siblings saying _Ohhh_ in a mocking tone (minus a few who hadn't come around yet). Which was definitely making it worse as silence had suddenly circled the pavilion and everyone stopped to listen.

My eye catches someone shifting in their seat from across the pavilion. When I look I see one of the boys from the Hephaestus table had a mixture of seeming pleased with my outburst but also had that look as if he knew what was coming next. As a matter of fact, everyone had the same look as I scanned around. Everyone, except for Annabeth and everyone else at my table, who looked like they were ready to spring into action if Clarisse made a move. There was only five others at the Athena table besides me at that moment, but they had no fear.

"You think just because you're the son of Athena that I won't pound you?"

I gulp a bit but was so happy to see Mr. D getting to his feet...lazily I should add "Okay. Okay. The shows over. Go back to what you were doing now."

She gives me a mean smirk. "You got lucky kid." I look at her with a bit of terror. "Watch your back." She walks away and I eye her all the way till she got to her own table. When she catches my eyes she cracks her knuckles and gives a nasty smile.

"I'm so dead." I think. Or at least I thought I said it to myself but I actually said it out loud.

"Don't worry. We got your back." A boy sitting next to me says. He had a slight smile of reassurance. He looked to be in his teens and beyond far from having the same hair color as Athena. Flaming red hair to be exact. He also wore glasses and was a bit bulky compared to the rest of the group.

I nod. "Thanks, uhh..."

"Nash." He says. "She's a handful but she's not all bad."

"That's a good one Nash." says an averaged weight, semi tanned girl with the same blond hair as Annabeth. She looks around Nash's age and has an accent. She was sitting across from me and next to Malcolm. "She's the worst of the bunch of them."

Robert now joins us with the rest of my siblings behind him. But he stays down a bit farther away from the rest of us, as if he'd catch a disease or something.

"Freya." Nash says. "You're supposed to be making him feel better, not making it worse."

"It beats putting false hope into his head."

"Clarisse really isn't that bad though." He gulps down whatever he was drinking.

"Only because you like to see the best in people."

"Is that really such a bad thing?"

"Of course not. But unless it's her then it is. There isn't a nice bone in her body." They got quiet for a second. "But of course it's also because you've been crushing on her since you met her, so it makes sense."

His face got so red it matched his hair. "I do not." He says under his breath. We couldn't help but laugh. His face was priceless.

I'm having a conversation with Freya on why she seemed to be the only person in camp without an American accent. Which she tells me is because her dad is British and happened to be visiting America when he met Athena. So she's technically American but since her dad lived in England that's where she lived till he got a job offer in LA.

I take a better look around as I took a sip of my Orange Juice and noticed that everyone at my table has blond hair except for Nash. I mean I have dirty blond and Robert has platinum, but it's still blond. Maybe not as light as Annabeth's and everyone else but at least we resemble each other more than Nash's red hair. But it doesn't seem to bother him. Which I get in a way, because I'm the only one without the stormy gray eyes since it's mixed with the blue that I got from dad.

Later after breakfast Annabeth once again took me over to the lake to study. It was a nice day as the sun reflected off the lake. The lake is surrounded halfway around with a deck, kind of like a boardwalk. The rest is surrounded by grass. In the middle of the deck is a dock that sticks out going towards the middle of the lake. We sat at the edge of the dock, me swinging my legs and her with her legs crossed as she went over the basics of the language with me. Then I thought of something.

"Annabeth?"

"Hm?"

"How well do you know Ryan?"

She was looking through the Ancient Greek book she had, scribbling somethings down in the notebook she had with her. "Ryan who?" She didn't even bother to look up.

"Uhh..." I just noticed that I didn't know her last name. How embarrassing. So I say instead. "She's the daughter of Apollo. Ralph's twin sister."

"Oh her." She didn't sound very interested. "I don't know her as much as I do Ralph. I only know him because Robert doesn't leave him alone. But I've seen her around a few times."

"So you don't know how she is and stuff like that?"

She looks up with a raised eyebrow. "Why the interest in her?"

"Well, she's in my art class. She started talking to me and I wanted to make sure she was a good person, don't want to get close to someone who may end up being like Clarisse." Total lie of course. I mean yea it was good to make sure she wasn't going to all of sudden turn around and try to hit me but there was something about her that made my stomach do cartwheels when she was around.

She starts to nod. "True. Can never be too careful." She looks back to the book. "But as far as I know, she's okay. Not a bad seed in Apollos cabin."

I try not to laugh. "Did you really just say bad seed?"

"Yes I did." She looks up at me and I have to keep a straight face. "Why?"

I shake my head. "Oh no reason. Just wondering."

We went back to the lesson and something had suddenly popped into my head. I had two rotations to go till I had Pegasus riding and that completely messed up my concentration. Now I wanted Ancient Greek and my next rotation, polishing armor to last as long as possible, because this is going to be an absolute nightmare when I get to those horses. And I had lots of those.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Rick Riordan owns Percy Jackson.  
**

**I do not take credit for anything.**

* * *

_**Chapter Twelve**_

So lets just say that I was happy to know that I didn't actually have to get on the horse today. They were just going through the basics of riding a horse. Which was such a relief you have no idea, because the time leading up to it was mostly of me trying to hide my anxiety from Annabeth during the remaining time of our lesson. So much anxiety that Ralph found me in the _All Species_ boys bathroom (that was also a showers room because not all the cabins have showers) during the half hour period that I was supposed to be polishing the armor and weapons. He had to calm me down because I ended up having a bad asthma attack.

"Hey." I heard his voice through the door as he knocked on the stall.

I was sitting on the floor up against the wall. "Deep breaths." I continued to tell myself.

"Joey?"

I didn't answer. I just wanted him to go away.

"I know you're in there. I saw you running in here from the lake. Come on buddy."

Now why did he have to go and call me buddy? I'm not used to the niceness of others wanting to be my friend. Especially the teenagers. Weird enough, he reminded me of my brothers. That hit a weak spot.

"I'm fine." I get out in between a noticeable lack of breath.

"Can you open the door?" He gets quiet for a second. "Please?"

I sit there for a few seconds, then I reach up and unlock the door. I don't get up but I slowly open it till it hits my body. Ralph looks down and crouches beside the opened door.

"Hey." He slowly says. Like the way a parent would say to their child when in a fragile state. "What happened?"

I shake my head, trying to catch my breath a bit. "Asthma attack."

"Oh man. You took your inhaler?" I nod. "Not helping?"

"Just overwhelmed. Takes a bit more when I'm panicked."

He sits on the floor. "Panicked about what?"

I shift my eyes a bit. I felt awkward talking to him about this. "He's older. I'm sure he'll laugh at me." Is all I could think.

"Come on. You can tell me." He says.

I take a painful deep breath as my chest hurt. Which he seemed to notice as he put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing a bit.

"Take your time. Just breathe."

I take a few more till I can handle the pain. Then I say. "Pegasus riding." I take another one. "Heights. Not my thing."

He slightly smiles and all I could think was that he was going to laugh at me. So I tilt my head up against the wall and try to hold in tears that were threatening to come from all the mixed emotions I was feeling at that moment. I felt alone without Franky. I miss my family. I miss being home.

"It's okay." He says in almost a whisper. "I get finding out you're a demigod and being here is a lot to handle. That, plus your fears can give you a lot of anxiety. It's totally normal."

I close my eyes and continue to breathe. "In and out." I whisper to myself.

"Lets go for a walk."

I look at him. "A walk."

He nods. "Hang out by the lake. My sister and her friend Silena are there. You look like you can use the company."

I'm speechless for a minute. He doesn't even really know me and still he wants to comfort me? Why am I making such a big deal about friendliness.

"Because that friendliness turns into hatred." My brain echoes.

All my life I've made friends and eventually they'd want nothing to do with me because of how weird I was. I mean now I get why it was the way it was at the time. But five year old me through till a few days ago I had no idea why people would love me one minute and then want nothing to do with me the next. They'd claim strange things happened all the time but I never understood. I just got used to it after awhile and it seemed normal to me since it happened a lot.

At the age of five a kid came around the park and was playing with me and my friends, when he jumped on me out of what I thought was pure fun. But my friends yelled in fear as they said he had a tail and fangs. I mean, at five years old what adult is going to believe something like that? No one of course, they thought it was a joke. But since then I grew up with kids treating me like I was a weirdo because things like that would happen pretty often and it spread around to keep away from me.

Ralph is watching me in concern as I had drifted off into a daze. "You coming?"

"I...well I'm supposed to be at the polishing area."

He half smiles. "I'll take care of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone here understands the emotions that is going through you when you're new. They'll get you need a bit of time to process. It's only been like two days for you. Plus there are a few of my siblings who have the same rotation as you right now. They'll cover for you."

"Really?"

He smiles and nods. "Hey. Not everyone is like Clarisse and her siblings."

He got up and helped me to my feet. Then we headed over to the polishing area. I waited outside as he talked to whoever was inside and then he came out with a smile.

"All good?" He says as I had settled down more, now walking to the lake.

I nod. "Fine. Thanks."

"Pegasus riding isn't all bad."

"When you're afraid of heights it is."

He half smiles and nods. "Yes. I'd imagine so. But you do know that's all in your head. If you face that fear it won't affect you."

"I guess."

It gets quiet for a minute. "By the way." I look up at him. "That was brilliant what you said to Clarisse this morning."

My heart sinks, at the same time my face starts turning red. "Thanks. But she's going to kill me now."

"That's a good possibility."

"Helpful, Ralph."

He laughs. "I've only been here for a few months but it's long enough to know her pretty well. She's definitely not going to leave you alone but if you stick with the right people we can have your back. It'll make it less tense to be around her."

"We?"

He smiles. "I got you. If you want. And I'm sure Ryan would be onboard about it too."

I nod. Trying not to smile like an idiot at hearing Ryan's name. "That would be helpful. Thanks."

"Not a problem. Demigods stick together."

"Tell Clarisse that."

He laughs and then I got quiet for a second.

"So are you going to be here year round? Or going back to school after the summer?"

He got quiet and his face turned a bit sad. I didn't like that look.

"Year round." He says. "Me and Ryan were living in Foster Homes back in California. So when our satyr found us he did whatever it is they do to keep the mortals from missing us, and...here we are." He stops for a second. "Our mom died giving birth to us."

"Oh..." I was a bit speechless. "I'm sorry."

He half smiles, but it was obviously forced. "No worries."

"How did you know Apollo was your dad? Did he claim you when you got here?"

He shakes his head. "No. We were told that our mom made these for us before we were born." He points to the silver necklace around his neck. A bow with an arrow through the middle at the end of the chain. "Foster Care made sure it traveled with us till we were old enough to wear them. Apparently it was her dying wish."

I look at it. "Because Apollo is an archer." I look back to him.

He nods. "My sister has the Laurel Wreath."

"His crown."

"Exactly." He rubs it with his finger. "It's obvious our mom knew who our dad was. If it wasn't for her doing that, we would have come here and ended up unclaimed in the Hermes cabin."

It got quiet for a few minutes. I was trying to find something to say to make it a happier conversation. But what could do that?

"Bit interesting though." He finally says.

I look up at him in confusion. "What is?"

"A demigod having asthma instead of ADHD. Never heard of that before."

"Oh." He nods. "Being different has always been my thing."

"For all of us it is."

"Even for a demigod I'm more not normal."

"Because you were born in a different way than usual for an Athena kid?" I nod but have a curious look as to why he knew that. So he smiles. "It's gone around camp that Athena allowed you to be born by a married couple instead of from her mind like the others. It's big news here. Don't get stories like that everyday."

We finally get to the lake and I can just make out Ryan and who I assumed was her friend Silena sitting on the edge of the dock. They seemed to be playing a card game.

"Hey guys." Ralph says when we get there.

"Joey!" Ryan half yells and stands. She slams into me for a hug and almost tackles me to the ground.

"Ow." I think to myself, while at the same time I was thinking "Oh my God." as my stomach did a summersault. But to play it cool I said. "Oh. Hi."

She backs up. "Hi." She smiles, turning a bit red. "Didn't expect to see you till lunch."

"Just needed a break." I say as I see Ralph trying to hold a laugh from behind her.

She nods. "Oh." I smile and nod. Then she turns around. "This is Silena." A girl standing next to Ralph walks up to us. "This is Joey." She adds.

When she gets to us she gives me a hello nod and smiles. "Daughter of Aphrodite."

She was wearing the traditional Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. But even that didn't keep you from knowing she was Aphrodite's kid. While most of the shirts were loose on others, hers fit her so perfectly you could see her slim body. Then she has black swishy flowing hair and makeup that brought out her sparkling blue eyes. When she talked it was like a girl from your dreams kind of voice.

"Son of Athena." I say.

Happened to be that Silena also had Pegasus lesson at the same time as me. So when I had to go over there she was right beside me. I was a bit speechless most of that walk with her. I think that's one of their things being Aphrodite's kid is to make you speechless. But I also found out that she's one of the best Pegasus riders, so she helps the Apollo head leader that is in charge of these lessons whenever she has the time.

Now I'm hanging in the cabin, sitting up against the wall on my bed. I was playing my Gameboy, waiting for Annabeth. She had a lot on her plate today so she was running a bit late for Mythology.

"Sorry I'm late."

She tosses a book towards me and it jabs me in the rib.

"Ow!"

"Oh my gods!" She yells.

I was trying not to laugh now. Ever since I got here I've heard everyone saying _gods_ rather than _God_. I know it's because there's more than one for them like Chiron told me but it's still weird to get used to. It just doesn't sound normal to me.

"I'm so sorry. I was aiming for the bed." She finishes.

I rub my side and she sits next to me. "It's okay. I'm fine."

"I've never had the best aim." She grabs the book from me.

"Not everyone does." I look at the book. "Another Mythology book?"

"Oh...no. It's a book I've been reading." She looks at it. "Luke gave it to me for Christmas."

I try not to smile as I see her face go bright red. She always gets like this whenever Luke is around or if someone mentions his name. I'm sure it's like looking into a mirror since I probably do the same when it comes to Ryan.

"What book?" I ask.

She hands it to me. The cover was black, like it was burned off.

"What happened to the cover?" I realize that this was the same book she was reading last night.

"I was at Monster Techniques some time ago and the monster blew fire. Got my backpack and the book was in it." She watches me flip through the pages. "Somehow it made it with just the front picture gone."

When I got to the title page the words _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets _was written on it.

"I've seen those movies. They're good."

She half smiles. "I haven't really had the pleasure of going to the movies to see them."

"What!" I say in shock. "You're kidding?"

"I've been a bit busy trying to not get killed." It got quiet. "Plus being here since I was seven hasn't exactly allowed me to be in the real world since I have no where to stay."

"Oh...right."

It gets a bit quiet now. I felt awkward not remembering that she's been here longer than the rest of the Athena cabin. Even longer than most of the camp.

"Ever read them?" She says to stop the silence.

I shake my head. "Not with my Dyslexia. To much of a hassle for me to get through even a paragraph sometimes."

She nods. "I get it of course. I've been forcing myself to read English books so I could get better."

"Has it helped?"

She looks at the book, as if she was distracted. Then she says. "I still have a hard time but it's a bit easier than it used to be."

"It's always been so hard for me. I've pretty much given up on trying to read. But now that I've found out I can read Greek I don't need it."

"Of course you'll need it, Joey." I go to say something. "You have a family to go back to. You won't be here throughout the school year. They will send you back to school. Even if they don't you'll eventually maybe end up going on a quest out in the real world. You'll need to know English. We live in _America_."

"Well...if you put it that way."

She half smiles and I hand the book back to her.

"How was Pegasus riding?"

I shrug a bit. "Didn't have to fly so it was great."

She smiles. "That's good." She then grabs another book. "Okay." She says. "We can either go through the Roman Mythology book _or_..." She put a lot of emotion into the word.

I had a feeling I knew what she was going to say. Last night she told me she was going to start helping me with my fighting whenever she had the time. Obviously she had the time now and I wasn't liking the idea of fighting a nine year old and hurting her. Or even getting my butt kicked by her and never hearing the end of it.

So I cut her off with. "Or you can act like your age for once and play Gameboy?" I put a cheesy smile and I saw her narrow her eyes at me. "Orrrrr not."

And at that note she went with teaching me some fighting techniques on the beach.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**I do not own anything related to Percy Jackson.**

**Credit to Rick Riordan.**

* * *

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

Free time came quickly. I was so grateful for this because I felt like I was about to pass out, I was so drained from Volleyball and it didn't help that I couldn't make a single shot over the net because of how much taller it is compared to me. I had to try ten times harder to jump high and attempt to at least tap it over. On top of that a few of the Ares kids were part of both teams and they purposely kept hitting me with the ball, spiking me in the stomach a good handful of times. Then giving an_ Oops_ that was obviously not sincere at all.

I stayed in the shower for so long I lost track of time. Most of it was of me sticking my head into the water and not coming out for proper breaths because of how frustrated I am. Then I hear a banging sound on my shower stall.

"You took my spot!" I hear a deep voice coming from the outside. "You have one minute to get out or I'll make you."

"Oh my God. What now." Is all I can think.

I turn off the water and dry off as fast as I could. My hair is still dripping as I pull over my t-shirt and open the shower door.

"Finally. Who do you think you are? Taking my shower?"

I look up and realize quickly who it is.

"Well?" Robert says.

My heart sank. He looked so mad I didn't know whether to bolt or actually say something.

"I..." I gulped. "I didn't know there were assigned showers."

"There's not. But everyone knows when I'm in the cabin this is my shower."

I slowly nod. "Sorry. I'm..."

"A newbie. I know." He says and I watch him a bit scared. "Now you know. Don't do it again."

I nod. "Right. No problem." Then I walk away without taking another look at him. I was ready to pee myself I was so scared. I'm not sure who will be worse, him or Clarisse.

Now that I knew Robert was around I decided to go hang out at the beach. It felt more private and safer than being here.

For a bit I walked along the beach, picking rocks from the sand and then tossing them into the ocean. When I found myself at the log that me and Franky hung out at yesterday, I felt the loneliness coming back to mind. The reason why I gave the place a chance and didn't argue as much as I wanted to with mom and dad about coming here was because Franky was going to be around. Yet here I am once again, by myself like I used to when I was growing up before I met him.

I walk closer to the log and sit down on the sand in front of it. I lean my back up against it and watch the waves from the water coming in towards the sand and riding back into the ocean. The sound was so soothing that in no time I found myself fast asleep. Sad to say that it wasn't a pleasant sleep, a nightmare filled in where the sweet dreams should have been.

"Boys!" Dads voice swarms my ears. It's a bit dark so the most I could get was a funny smell coming to my nose.

"Mom! Dad!" Hunter and Billy yell.

Light starts to fill around me now. "Run!" Mom shouts from across a wall of flames, dad right next to her.

"Not without you!"

The scene starts to come clearer and I see that they are all divided from the Main Hallway and Living Room to our house. Then I find myself on the same side with my brothers as mom and dad were stuck on the other side of the flames.

"What happened?!" I yell in panic, but no one hears me.

I look towards the fire and can just make out mom and dad. Now their backs are to me, and a huge dark shadow is visible through the flames, but I can't make out what it is. I try to run towards them but when I get to the fire I bump into it, like there was a force field. I hit the wall of flames so hard that I fell backwards on the floor in a sitting position, feeling as if I broke my wrist as I caught myself. I stare up at it in shock and confusion till mom looks back to me. She says something but I can't hear her.

"What!" I yell.

"Wake up." I barely hear her say.

"Mom!"

"Joey, wake up!"

I sit up so fast that I see the world spinning in front of me. Massive amounts of sweat is dripping down my face and I try to catch my breath.

"Joey?" I faintly hear someone say from next to me. But now my ears are ringing and I'm feeling light headed.

I fumble for my inhaler that is in my basketball shorts, dropping it as my hands started to shake.

"Whoa." I hear the voice louder now. Then the sound of stomping in sand as the person hurries to the front of me and crouches down in the sand, picking up my inhaler and hands it to me.

I take it from their hands and take a huge puff. It hurt to even do that as my chest got tighter. Then I feel a hand go on my shoulder and look up to see who it was.

"Are you okay?"

"Luke." I say out of breath. "What..." But I couldn't continue.

"Okay." He says. "Just relax."

Apparently it's normal to have nightmares as a demigod. I mean yea I've had them before. Didn't know it was because being part god had anything to do with it but it's never been that bad or realistic before. All I know is it took me awhile to get my breathing under control. I was so worked up from that dream that I couldn't think straight. I was having a panic attack on top of an asthma attack. This was not a good day.

When I'm finally able to breathe normally I tell him what happened in my dream. He told me it was probably nothing but his eyes said differently as fear was all I could see in them. If this wasn't a good thing why lie? To protect me? If my family really is in trouble then I should be out there. Which is what I told him.

"You're not allowed to leave unless Chiron lets you. And he won't till either summer vacation is over or if you get a quest."

"That's not fair."

"It's his job to protect us. He would risk his life for that cause."

"And if my family is in danger?"

He watches me. Then he shrugs. "I don't know. Just send them a letter or Iris Message them. Till you have a straight answer to whether your dream is real or just something that came about randomly there's not much you can do."

Luke helps me to my feet and we walk off towards the cabins. Apparently I missed dinner. Of all people though, I didn't expect Luke to be the one to find me.

"Annabeth asked me to help." He had said. "She was a bit busy to head to the cabin after helping Chiron with a few things. So she went straight to dinner. Then you didn't show up. One of the Athena kids said they saw you get into an awkward conversation with Robert and then took off."

I nod. "Yea. I stole his shower stall."

He puts a bit of a smile. But you could tell he didn't find it funny. "He's a bit much."

"Would have never known."

We had just got in front of cabin eleven (Hermes cabin) when I saw Ryan walk out of the Apollo cabin with Ralph and their cabin leader that was probably around their age or older. All of them were wearing Greek armor. Ralph had a dagger on his belt with a bow and arrows around his shoulder. Ryan and their leader both only had a bow and arrows over theirs.

"What's going on?"

He looks down at me. "Capture the Flag."

I raise an eyebrow. "With weapons and armor?"

"We are demigods. Nothing is normal for us."

"Yep." I nod. "I've noticed."

He smiles and claps my back. "Don't think too much into it. It's just another way of training. It helps put your skills to the test."

"How about I just hang back and watch?"

"Kid. You need to just relax and go with the flow." I watch him. "We have a plan."

"We?"

A loud noise of laughter and anger breaks out from cabin four, also known as the Demeter cabin (goddess of the seasons, harvests, agriculture, etc). We both look over to see two boys running away in a fit of laughter as the girls chased them down.

Luke starts shaking his head and laughs. "Oh man. Those two never learn to knock it off."

"Who are they?"

"My half brothers. Travis and Collin Stoll. They are the jokesters of the cabin. Always getting themselves into trouble."

"They're twins?"

He shakes his head. "Travis is about a year older."

He points to the slightly taller brown haired boy as they had gotten cornered up against the Apollo cabin, hands covering their heads because the girls were slapping them.

"Their height is the only way to tell them apart because they look exactly alike." He says.

I nod in agreement and look back at them. Now they were rolling on the floor from all the laughing they were doing. The girls were yelling at them about tossing cooking flower all over them was not funny. Now that I got a better look, all the girls hairs were in fact white as flour.

"Stop laughing!" One of the girls yelled.

"Katie calm down." Another girl says to the first in a calm voice as she got the others to head inside.

"Anyway." Luke continues as he wipes away the tears of laughter. "My cabin tag teamed with yours and Apollos cabin."

"Like allies?" I say, turning back to him.

He nods. "Exactly. Just follow our lead. We have a spot for you."

I did not like the sound of that, but I soon figured that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was actually entertaining to watch everyone run around like maniacs for a flag that to me was so pointless because I wasn't very competitive. I helped enough though. They had me stay somewhere up the hill from the flag with Ralph while Ryan and Annabeth guarded the flag. We could see them from where we were. Luke and everyone else had different posts to find the other teams flag.

Our flag was a ten feet tall silk and gray banner with the design of Athena's animal sign, the owl above an olive tree. The other flag was the same size but was red with a bloody spear and boar's head. If you haven't guessed yet, it was Ares' design.

It had to be a good twenty minutes of just standing around surrounded by trees, watching my section of the woods. Ralph was pacing somewhere behind me all that time and it was getting a bit annoying. I knew he was pacing because I could hear the back and forth motions of his feet as it hit the hard dirt, little conversation the entire time. Then without warning a dagger just misses my head and sinks into the tree next to me. We hear yelling from where the dagger had come from and no surprise to see some of the Ares kids running our way. Brad was in the lead with three other very big boys speeding over like a truck out of control.

"Attack!" Ralph says, signaling down to the girls that company had arrived. Then he runs towards the two on the left.

I stand there for a moment, completely stunned. I would have been dead if we were really in battle. "Think." I thought. Being a kid of Athena we are supposed to know battle strategy. Right now my brain felt like it melted into a pile of nothing.

I watched as Brad and his brother hurled towards me at full speed. Then it felt as if everything went into slow motion (which I didn't realize till later that they actually were in slow motion because I had been messing around with my watch out of nerves and I accidentally hit the button dad told me to press while in trouble). He hit me with the butt of his sword, right where I had gotten hurt the day the monster attacked us on the bus. I felt as the scab opened up and blood dripped down. I'm a bit dazed for a second as I wipe away the blood. Then I see him lift his arm up for another blow and I dodge his attempt to hit me again. In that same moment I managed to slam my foot into the back of his knee, while at the same time colliding my sword with his brothers sword, sparks flying. When I looked behind me I noticed the slow motion effect went away and at full speed Brad tumbled out of control from the hit to his knee and crashed into one of his brothers that were fighting Ralph. Then he slammed head first into a tree. I elbowed his brother in the nose and took off towards Brad, who got to his feet and had blood gushing out of his mouth. He looked really mad as he spit out blood and then swings his sword like a crazy person at me, which paid off because the tip of his blade slashed my thigh.

"Aaahhh." I yell in pain and collapse onto my good knee for support. Blood rushed down my thigh and it got me a bit sick. That was a lot of blood.

The next thing I know the sound of cheers and a horn blew not too far from us. I look to where it was coming from and could just make out the Stoll brothers holding up the other teams flag past our safe area line. The flag magically changes from the Ares symbol to a staff with wings and snakes coiling around it, Hermes symbol.

I take a relieved breath and wipe off the mixture of sweat and blood blinding my left eye. "We won. Thank the gods. No. God...gods? Oh forget it."

That was the last thing I remember because as I tried to stand Brad decided to play unfair and tackled me into one of the trees, slamming the back of my head into it. Then he punched me so hard in the face I blacked out.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Happy New Year demigods! Hope your holidays were awesome.**

**Thought I'd update a new chapter as a treat for the start of a brand new year.**

**I don't own or take credit for anything Percy Jackson related.**

**Rick Riordan owns everything.**

* * *

_**Chapter Fourteen**_

The sound of people walking around woke me up Monday morning. I was completely exhausted to get up. The blow to the face from Brad during Capture the Flag not only gave me a bruised nose and black and blue under both my eyes, but it had also given me a concussion. I was taken to the infirmary after it happened and woke up to one of the Apollo kids telling me that he gave me a godly drink called Nectar. I was told that Nectar and the godly food called Ambrosia help heal injuries, and that it tastes like the flavor of your favorite flavored drink or food. Since I wasn't awake when he gave me some I don't know what it would be. Apparently the Nectar and Ambrosia gives your strength back, but too much can kill demigods. The perks of not being immortal. Anyway, my leg and broken nose were pretty much healed up by then so he sent me back to my cabin with Annabeth, telling me to come back later if I needed more because my face wasn't looking very pleasant. Usually it's only for emergencies but since I had already been sent there for emergency reasons he could give me more as long as it was the same day. However, I fell asleep and forgot all about it.

Saturday and Sunday I didn't really do too much since I was told not to do anything that has physical stuff for the rest of the week. All I did was eat, hung around the cabins, walked the beach and sat at the lake while the kids I became close to took turns keeping me company.

Annabeth had hung with me while in the cabin most of Saturday. I wasn't really at full strength to go out, I was still a bit weak from the head injury. On Sunday she took me to the lake to meet up with Luke and Grover, watching some of the kids canoe around. This was the first time I actually had any interaction with Grover so I didn't know what to expect. First off...I found out he isn't even close to our age. He looks at least fourteen, but turns out he's twenty six. At least when I asked Chiron how old Franky is he was reasonably around our age, which is sixteen. I mean he isn't ten like he said but at least he's closer than Grover. But other than that the dude is cool. He's pretty funny too. When he's nervous or embarrassed he makes the sound a goat makes when they talk. I had to try everything not to crack up when he did that.

Later that day it was Ralph's turn. He had a set of VHS tapes that he wanted to watch. Seems they haven't updated to DVDs yet. But I didn't complain as I hung with him and Ryan in the Apollo cabin to watch a couple movies. Their cabin had a set up in a section of the cabin with all TVs. Kind of like a theater. Then Ryan took me to the beach during the night. It was amazing the way the water bounced the moonlight off it.

Brad got into major trouble for acting the way he did. He was put to doing chores for the next few weekends and having to do basically whatever Mr. D ordered him to do, which I heard could be really brutal coming from him. But usually the weekends are relaxing days. Only volunteers and the kids who get themselves into trouble have to do the chores.

Now back to Monday. I hear the sound of Roberts voice getting mad as Malcolm jumped off the top bunk above his bed that are across from mine and Annabeth's. The mixture of the vibrating from the jump and Roberts yells hurt my head. I had to close my eyes as my head started to throb from a headache creeping up. I was facing the wall, so as I heard footsteps coming from behind me I didn't even bother to look.

"Hey, Joey." I hear sometime later.

It was Annabeth, so I slowly turn around. It hurt a bit to even do that and I saw the look of sympathy in her eyes.

"How'd you sleep?"

I slowly sit up. "Okay I guess."

In truth, I did. To the point of not having any nightmares...or not having any false realistic nightmares that woke me up through the night. The one of my family from the other day didn't happen. I sent an Iris Message to them last night to make sure everything was okay. Not a thing unusual based off of mythological or human has happened since I left according to my brothers, who were the only ones home at the time and promised not to mention that my face looked like I got hit by a car to mom.

Annabeth nods. "That's good." She kneels down. "You can skip today you know. Chiron said a couple days from the normal schedule wouldn't be a bad thing."

"I don't need anyone thinking that I'm too much of a baby to handle an injury."

"It was a pretty bad injury, Joey. You can barely walk outside without the sun bothering your eyes."

I start to pull off my blanket. "I'm fine. I'll skip the physical stuff. No training. Most of it is just chores anyway."

She starts to shake her head and I give her a pleading look. She scans the room, as if trying to find someone to back her up. Then she nods "Fine."

I smile. "Thanks Annabeth."

She nods. "Yea. Just be careful okay? Since I'm cabin leader I told Chiron I'd try to keep you from leaving the cabin today. But you're just as stubborn as..."

"Athena's kids?"

She half smiles. "Pretty much."

"Guess I did inherit something from her."

"Looks like it."

I get up and go into my trunk.

"By the way." She says from behind me. I turn to her. "I'm inspecting the cabins today. So if you want to hang around with me after breakfast you can. Doesn't take long."

I grab my clothes out of my trunk. "Maybe just a few cabins I'll tag along for."

She nods. "Okay."

I smile and walk to the bathroom.

When I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror when I went to brush my teeth after I took a shower, my heart sank a bit. I keep forgetting how my face looks from Brad pounding me in the nose. The under part of my eye made the black eye from wrestling darker than it had been a couple days ago. I mean, the swelling from my nose was gone, the cut from the first day I got here finally healed up and the bruising of my nose and eyes weren't as bad as when I first got hit since the Nectar they gave me kicked in but I still looked like I ran into a brick wall. I feel like a complete idiot for letting him catch me off guard like that. What kind of a demigod am I? What kind of son of the Wisdom goddess am I if I can't even see something as simple as that coming?

"You okay?" I hear Annabeth.

I catch her reflection in the mirror standing in the doorway of the bathroom.

"Yea. Coming." She nods and leaves.

When I walk out I can see Annabeth hanging outside with Luke. So before I left I went into my trunk and took out the light blue fitted New Jersey Nets cap Franky had sent me in the mail the other day.

"Happy super early birthday." He had wrote in his letter.

I smile. "So close." I say to myself as my twelfth birthday grew closer. Then I put the cap on backwards, like Franky always wears it and ran out the door.

My random switch of style with the hat seemed to get people's attention. Not sure what was such a big deal about the fact I decided to wear one but I'm not complaining. It got the girls attention, especially Aphrodite's daughters. Apparently they liked the way my dirty blond hair poked out of the under part of the hat because it made me look older. Girls are so weird.

Annabeth had left breakfast earlier than I did. So when I was done I went to wait for her in the cabin courtyard. I was sitting on one of the stone benches when she called me over from the Demeter cabin a few minutes later. No one is supposed to be inside their cabins when doing inspections so they were all empty as we went one by one to check how clean it was. She had done most of them already, so the only ones I got to see the inside of were Hermes cabin, Ares's and Aphrodite's. I've also seen Apollos but that's because I've hung out with the twins in there.

You'd think since I've become friends with Luke that I would have been in that cabin already, but I never did. The outside of their cabin is the most normal looking out of all of the cabins. It literally looks like a modern mortals cabin. So the inside basically looked how'd you imagine a regular cabin would look. It's the biggest, which makes enough space for everyone who has to stay there. But you can tell it's getting crowded with most of it being filled with sleeping bags. So she gave them a decent number grade for their cleanness considering the circumstances.

I was pretty happy that there wasn't anyone around because when we got to Ares's cabin I didn't have to worry about Clarisse or Brad trying to pound me. Their cabin was painted red like blood, barbed wires on the roof and a boars head on the door. Bit creepy if you ask me. The inside was nothing special though. It looked like any other normal cabin with beds scattered around the room and a door that must have been a bathroom or some kind of closet. A lot of the time you can hear the Ares kids yelling and screaming because they are all competitive with each other, while music blasted from inside.

"Did they ever give you the traditional dunking of the head into a toilet?" Annabeth says when we walk out, writing down the number six next to their cabin name.

"Uh...no?"

"Watch out for it then. You've been here for days, so I'm surprised they didn't get you on the first day."

"That's nasty."

"That's how they are."

Aphrodite's cabin on the outside has a painted roof with pillars. A blue and white checkerboard deck with steps, gray walls, a pink door and laced curtains. Talk about it being all over the place for the goddess of beauty. The inside was a jaw dropper. Good or bad depends on you. It was completely surrounded by pink walls with posters of famous people and smelled like perfume, which made me gag. Then the inside curtains and beds are blue and green. I could not grasp how much of a typical girl space it was. I felt bad for her sons who have to put up with this craziness.

"Hey Annabeth!"

We had just walked out of the cabin when we heard her name being called. We both jumped from it, scaring me half to death.

"What the Hades, Connor." She says as we turn around and see the Stoll brothers.

I look at her, half smiling. They really have the weirdest way of expressing their feelings. That's their term for Hell. Get it? Because Hades is the Lord of the Underworld? No? Okay.

Connor laughs. "Sorry! Thought you saw us."

They walk closer. "Joey right?" His brother Travis asks.

I half smile and nod.

"Sweet hat kid." Connor says with a smile.

"Oh. Uh. Thanks."

They both smile.

"Nets huh?" Travis says.

I slowly nod.

"Interesting basketball team choice." Connor adds.

"Well. They are the best team in the New York/Jersey area."

"Matter of opinion little man." Travis says. "Because I know a couple people who will argue that the Knicks would give the Nets a run for their drachma."

I start to smile. "I'm guessing these people would be...you?"

They both smile and laugh.

"This one is smart." Connor says.

"Son of _Athena_, Connor." Travis says with a _DUH_ face.

"Oh...right. Of course."

When I got to art I continued my drawing from the last time I was here. Ryan and Ralph took the spots next to me. Ryan was concerned almost the entire time because of how I looked. Over and over again she would ask if I was okay, or if I needed anything. But eventually she calmed down and went to her old self.

The next day I was still a bit tired and achy, but I felt better than I did the day before. Again Annabeth tried to convince me to take the day to relax since I begged her to let me go out yesterday and saw how much I struggled to do things as simple as lift up my plate of food. But again I told her I was okay, that I didn't want to stay cooped up in the cabin all day. It took a little more to get her to see that I was better so she could agree to let me go. But eventually she did and I went through the day as I always did.

Now I'm on my way to meet up with Annabeth for Mythology after checking the storage. I was just about to walk through the door of Athena's cabin when someone grabbed my Nets cap and then took off.

"Hey!" I yell.

I hear laughter as I turned around, noticing it was Ryan. I start smiling to myself and ran after her. I won't lie, she's fast.

"Ryan!"

"Joey!"

I hear a mixture of both Ralph and Annabeth yell from somewhere behind us.

"He's not supposed to be doing anything physical!" Annabeth yells.

Did that stop us? Not even a bit. She continued to run and I chased her all the way to the beach. I probably should have been exhausted to run around, but the adrenaline was pumping now. She was a bit farther from me, so when she reaches the beach she stopped just before the ocean began with a bright smile on her face. I was just about to get to her when she dodges my grab for the hat and took off again. This time I managed to catch her quickly, wrapping my arms around her stomach and lifting her up off the sand. I grew about an inch in the time I've been here. I was glad because now she's barely taller than me so this would have been harder to do. Her laugh echoed my ears and I thought it was the most amazing sound in the world.

She turns her head towards me and I see all her teeth shinning from the sun, still laughing. She was so close, our nose were almost touching. She sets my cap back onto my head and I put her gently back down onto the sand. Now I was feeling the energy die out of me as I sat down in the sand and pulled out my inhaler.

She sits right beside me, out of breath. "Sorry." She says.

I take a puff and smile at her. "It's..." I took a deep breath. "It's okay."

"I forgot you have asthma."

"So did I." I laugh and she smiles at me. "But it was worth it." I see her blushing and now I was kinda doing the same. I have never been so laid back with a girl before.

I touch my cap and notice she had put it on the normal way, tip facing the front. So I take it off, feeling the wind pushing back my hair. I try to flatten it out as much as I could so that my bangs would stay flat on my forehead. Then I flip my hat around so it was backwards and put it back onto my head.

"That was an intense work out." I say, still a bit out of breath.

She laughs and brushes my bangs a bit to the side. I felt my stomach do a summersault.

She goes to say something but then. "Ryan Matthews!" We hear Annabeth's voice as her and Ralph had just gotten to the beach.

"Oh no." She whispers.

"Are you trying to kill him?!" Annabeth says, a bit angry.

"Annabeth. I'm fine."

"You promised." She says. "No physical stuff, remember? You are in no shape for it."

"_I'm_ _fine_." I put a lot of emotion into those words. "What is the worst that's going to happen besides me having an asthma attack from running too much?"

"Well...you could hit your head again." She says in an _matter of fact_ tone.

"I can hit my head no matter what day it is."

"You have an concussion. That's the difference, Joey."

"It's been a few days since it happened. If I keep worrying about it I'll never do anything." I say. "Chiron only said to take a couple days off because he thought I was too weak to move around."

"No. He said to take a couple days off because the Apollo kid at the infirmary said you shouldn't be doing anything physical for the week."

"Exactly. He said shouldn't, not can't. There's a different." She gives me such a look that I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. Instead I smile. "Seriously. I'm good." She watches me. "Honest, sis."

Her anger lifts a bit and her gray stormy eyes start to twinkle. I hit a soft spot by calling her sis, because she went the rest of the day in a good mood with me. I think I got this being an older brother thing down.

The rest of the week wasn't so bad. But since I refused to listen to Annabeth about the being physical thing, Chiron gave orders not to let me do anything besides mellow chores till next week. So I was able to hang around the camp and relax a bit during the breaks they would force me to take. Which was fine by me because my family Iris Messaged me at one point and I didn't have to worry about telling them I was too busy to talk. I was happy to see they were doing good considering everything that's going on.

"What happened to your face?!" Mom half screamed.

I was in the middle of studying the Ancient Greek book Annabeth told me to read when their image popped up at the foot of my bed. I hadn't noticed it was even there, so I jumped from the sudden yell. Iris Messages just have this habit on appearing out of thin air. Never know when it's there.

I cursed in Greek and looked over to them. "Holy Hera, mom. Little warning next time."

Hera is the goddess of marriage and motherhood. I heard a few people say this when they got scared or were in shock. So I just assumed it was another way of saying _Oh My gods_ or maybe _Mother of God_, if you want to go the mortal way when they react to things. Now if that's not what it means, then I just made up a new slang fraise because it seems different people use different greek gods names for things around here. I can't keep up.

"Holy what?" She hesitates. "Wait...are you reading?"

"And did you just speak a different language?" Hunter says.

"Oh, yea. Sorry. Since I'm technically Greek too they teach us the language. Was studying." I sit up straighter, cross my legs and put the book aside.

"You can read Greek?" Billy says.

I nod. "Yea." I start to blush.

"I think the question we should be asking is...since when does Joey know how to read?" Hunter says, trying not to laugh.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

I was leaning up against my headrest, watching the floating image of my family right in front of me. They all lost it and started laughing so hard they looked like they would pass out. It was great seeing them like they were right here with me. They look like they are on the big screen while watching a 3-D movie in the theater, so close I could have touched them if they were here.

"So what happened to your face?" Mom asks again. It really wasn't as bad as it was days ago but this was the first time she saw me in awhile so it was bound to be more hyped up for her.

"Training, ma." Which technically wasn't a total lie because captured the flag was training. Brad just took it a bit too seriously.

"Training." She says in a voice that I knew was her trying to stay calm while making sense of this. "I didn't send you there to get your face bashed in from "training"."

"But you sent me here to stay safe." I say. "They are doing that by teaching me the way a demigod is meant to. I need to know how to fight in order to protect myself out in the real world."

Mom goes to argue but then dad cuts in. "Other than that. How is it?"

I nod. "It's okay. Not the normal type of camp I always thought of, but it'll do."

They all smile at me. My brothers were sitting on the floor in front of the two seat couch, while my parents were sitting behind them on it. I want to know how they made a rainbow in front of the TV, because that's where they are. You need a rainbow for this type of messaging to work. But I didn't bother asking. The twins are very handy at stuff like this. What I did notice was that all four of them looked exhausted. Probably working too hard at their jobs, or worrying too much. If I had to guess I'd go for the second reason.

"By the way. I finally got to use my watch." They all wait for me to continue. "Slow motion effects? That's pretty sweet, dad."

He has a stunned look, they all did. "Is that what it does?"

I give him a look. "It was your gift. You were the one who kept reminding me to use it in emergencies."

"Well..." He hesitates. "That was actually a gift from Athena. So I knew it had to protect you in some way cause that's what she told me."

My face drops. "What?"

"She said to give it to you when you were old enough to use it. Obviously you didn't know who you were yet, so I played it off as if I got it for you."

I look down at it. "I...I'm not sure what to say."

"Just keep an open mind that we may have raised you but she is technically your family too. Don't hold a grudge."

I got quiet. I couldn't tell if he believed the whole "don't hold a grudge" thing. They had to leave me behind because of Athena's side of the family and I'm pretty sure they aren't happy about that. I know for a fact that they are just as upset about the situation as me but don't want to show it.

"Make any friends?" Dad changes the subject.

"And how's Franky?" Billy adds.

I look back up to them. "I've made a few friends. They are pretty cool." Mom and dad seemed to have relieved faces. "As for Franky. He was sent on another assignment the day after my first full day here. So he hasn't been around."

"Well." Dad says. "At least you have others to talk to right?" I nod. "That's all that matters for now. He can't be your only friend forever."

"Yea." I nod. "Well one of the people I've become close to happens to be my sister."

They get quiet. "That is really weird." Hunter says.

"You're telling me." I say. "At least you had eleven years to prepare for who I am and knew it was possible that I had other siblings out there. I had to swallow everything at once. I have nine new half siblings I didn't even know existed."

"We were..." Dad starts.

"Trying to protect me. I know."

While I was finishing that sentence Ryan popped her head through the door. I saw the motion of her head peeking inside from the corner of my eye and I look over.

"Hey." She whispers.

My face started to get hot. "I gotta go."

"Now?" Mom says. She looked like she was ready to cry.

I nod. "Yea, ma. I was on a break."

"Okay." She says. "Be safe!"

"Always am."

"Could have fooled us." Billy says.

"Yea. That new look is very attractive." Hunter finishes.

"Oh shut up." They all laugh a bit.

"Love you baby." Mom says.

"Love you guys too. Talk soon." Then I swipe away the image with my hand and head over to meet Ryan.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**New chapter for whoever has been keeping up.**

**I apologize to whoever is into this story or a few others I had wrote but stopped updating.**

**My main focus has been one particular story lately, so I get to the others when I can.**

**Thank you for whoever has been barring with my random times of hiatus.**

**I do not own Percy Jackson.**

**All credit to Rick Riordan.**

* * *

_**Chapter Fifteen**_

When Friday came I got to hang back with Grover, Chiron and the Aphrodite cabin (they don't like to be physical, so they stay out of it if possible) while watching Capture the Flag turn into a complete fail on not only my cabins part, but Ares too. The Ares cabin were teamed up with Hermes and Apollo, which they won (cue annoyed face). But Ares themselves couldn't get our teams flag, which ticked them off because that of course means they have to tag team with a cabin that didn't have their flag on it...again. Which they could have gotten their symbol on the flag if Clarisse wasn't busy butting heads with Brad.

"Clarisse has a bad temper." Silena tells me.

"Would have never guessed that." I say sarcastically.

"Be careful with her, Joey. She may not have dunked your head into the toilet, but that doesn't mean she forgives you for what you said during breakfast last week."

Keeping that in mind I made sure not to get on that cabins bad side as much as I really wanted to, because Clarisse wouldn't be the only person I'd have to worry about if I continue to mess around with her. But that doesn't mean that I won't pull pranks on her every once in awhile.

Now let's fast forward to a Saturday in July. I've been here for about a month now and still I was having a hard time at figuring out what I was good at. Sword fighting I was decent, wrestling was unbearable but I was getting the hang of it (even if Clarisse and Brad still liked to pound at me a bit). Pegasus riding was a no, no. So they made sure my feet stayed on the ground. I was pretty good at art and not so bad at archery. But I noticed my Greek was getting better.

As the days went by Annabeth had started having me read the history of Greek Mythology as well as Roman Mythology. Apparently I kept making connections with certain things that in the mortal world would be true but in this world is slightly different, so she had me brush up a bit on my mythology so I could stop saying things like "That's our uncle or cousin because of..." In the demigod world it's less complicated than what they make it seem in the mortal world.

So Saturday I'm in the cabin hanging with Annabeth as she's telling me that I had gotten extremely good at reading, writing, speaking and understand the Ancient Greek language. This of course made me feel really proud of myself because I finally improved and got to everyone else's level. I was told that demigods at least understand and know how to read it by the time they got here. But would learn how to write and speak it along the way. When I got here I was only able to read Greek, nothing else. But even knowing how to do that I barely understand what I read. We think it's because of my unusual situation with having two human parents.

When I went to bed that night I was pretty excited, because the next day was Sunday and you know what that means right? Anyone? No? Well...it's my birthday! Yes, yes. Thank you. Hold your applause. I haven't told anyone else in camp about it. Not only because I didn't want all the attention, but also because I was still processing Annabeth's birthday from last weekend. She just turned ten but it was as if she turned sixteen instead. I mean this place has a way of celebrating that it has you drain for days! Imagine the craziness of turning the age that demigods normally find out who they are. Would it be worse? I didn't want to find out. But little did I know that Franky had secretly sent a letter to Annabeth sometime during the week to let her know what day it was. So when I woke up to see balloons and streamers hanging from my bunk I was shocked.

"Happy Birthday!"

They scared me so bad I almost fell out of my bed. When I sit up I see Franky in an image of an Iris Message, waving at me from the foot of my bed. The Stoll brothers, the twins, Luke and even Grover were scattered around with Annabeth and my other siblings, smiles on their faces. The only one I didn't see was Robert, who wasn't even in the cabin.

I could feel my face burning up now. I was not expecting this at all. I planned to wake up, get maybe a quick Iris Message with my family when I had the time and then go the rest of the day normally hanging out with my friends.

What took me off guard was that I didn't even get a word out before the Stoll brothers both pulled me out of bed. Connor putting me in an headlock and Travis rubbing his knuckles on the top of my head. I have gotten pretty close to the two of them since I've been here, they became like brothers to me.

"Happy twelfth little man!" Connor yells.

He is only older than me by months but he won't let it go that he sees me like a little brother, which is only because he was so much taller than me when we first met. Not anymore though, he's maybe an inch taller now. I went through a pretty big growth spurt. I'm also finally starting to look like my siblings by tanning up a bit and gaining some muscle. I almost have a six pack!

I laugh. "Thanks. But who..."

"Guilty!" I hear Franky.

"Franky you little..."

I struggle out of Connors grip but they were both trying to wrestle me back into a headlock. After a bit of time I managed to push him and Travis onto my bed. They were both so red from laughing it was hard not to laugh myself.

"Hey man." Franky says in between laughs. "I wasn't going to be around. I couldn't let you celebrate your birthday by yourself."

"And we would have found out eventually." Annabeth says. "You are surrounded by the children of Athena. We are pretty smart you know."

"No. I had no idea." I say sarcastically and I see her trying to give me her evil look, but it didn't work out too well.

"Well I'm hungry." Connor says. "I can smell the barbecue from here."

It was like on cue that the smell of food traveled up my nose. I closed my eyes and took it all in. Then I realized that the smell of those particular foods only came around during lunch and dinner.

"Wait...I slept through breakfast?"

"On my orders." Annabeth says, nodding.

When I look over I noticed something different on her necklace today, a ring. Like the type you would get from high school or college.

"What if I was hungry?"

I'll ask her about the ring later.

"Well I'm sure you're still hungry now. So how about you stop being a baby."

_"Ohhhhhh." E_choes through the cabin. Laughter following right after.

I look over towards Ryan, who at the moment had Ralph laying his forehead on her shoulder cracking up. She hits him across the head. "Stop it dummy." Then she catches my eyes and smiles.

When I look back, Annabeth is closer to me. "Okay sis. I get it."

She smiles and gives me a light punch to the stomach. "Get ready. I'll wait for you out by the fire pit."

"Your parents sent you a package by the way." Freya comes from behind a few of our siblings and hands me a pretty big cardboard box.

"Thanks."

She smiles and then heads out the door.

For maybe ten minutes I talked with Franky. Seeing how he was and told him how I was trying to hold my own being away from the family. He says where he is there are a lot of mixed smells so he's having a hard time figuring out if it's monsters, demigods or both. Then we said our goodbyes as he heard footsteps outside the storage room he was hiding out in at the school and disconnected.

I look at the package my family sent me and decided to check it out before I went to the bathroom since everyone wasn't around. You know, just in case it was embarrassing.

_Happy Birthday! _

_We are proud to call you our son, and brother. Things may have not gone the way you thought, but know that we love you no matter what. Have fun and work hard. See you soon._

_Love you,_

_Mom, Dad, Hunter and Billy_

I smile at the letter. Man do I miss them, so much. I may have new family, but nothing compares to them.

I open the box and see the massive amount of clothes. I mean, you name it they bought it. There were two new pairs of pjs in different shades of blue (my favorite color) and at least two of each of shirts and pants in different styles, colors, patterns and designs. It was from regular t-shirts to polo shirts to long sleeve shirts, all in either solid or striped coloring. Zip up hoodies and pull over hoodies with my favorite sports teams or just plain. Different types of long and short jeans, multiple colors of cargo pants and sweat pants. I mean, it was crazy.

What got me in a bit of a heart dropping moment was the fact that they sent me clothes for the winter too, not just the summer. It was starting to look like they weren't going to have me come home this year. I didn't like that thought. I'm going to pray to Athena that that's not what will happen. If it does then at least I would be set with clothes for the rest of the year, as long as I don't go having anymore growth spurts.

I grew two more inches this week and that led to Annabeth having to give me new camp shirts and a new hoodie in bigger sizes for the second time, because add that to the amount I've already grown and you'll notice that I'm too tall to fit into whatever I had. I went from being one of the shortest kids my age to almost one of the tallest. I was lucky that most of my clothes had been a bit big on me to begin with but eventually I had to tell my parents about me growing about six inches since I've been here so they could send me some new clothes, but I didn't expect this.

I went through the box and noticed that they had even thrown in a new pair of dark blue and white hightop converse. Then I see some new Gameboy games at the bottom of the box. They really over did it this year.

Once I got over the shock I grabbed one of my new pairs of jean shorts and a regular camp tee. Then I emptied out my trunk with all the clothes that didn't fit anymore (which sucked because half those shirts were my favorites) and replaced them with the new clothes, throwing in my new games too. Then I threw my old clothes into the cardboard box and left it on my bed while I went to take a shower.

When I got out of the bathroom, Ryan was sitting on my bed. I was in the middle of drying off my hair, so I tossed the towel with the rest of the towels and walked over.

"Hey." I say.

She smiles. "Hey. Happy Birthday."

I smile. "Think you said that already."

She laughs and nods. "Yes I did. But I didn't give you this." She holds out something rectangle, wrapped in wrapping paper.

I sit down next to her and look at it. "You didn't have to get me anything."

She shrugs. "I know. But I wanted to."

I slowly grab the rectangular figure from her, our finger tips brushing against each other. Butterflies filled in my stomach and her face turned super red. I try my best to ignore it and unwrap it to see a thin metal box with the mixture of gray and gold coloring. Athena's symbol owl is sketched into it. When I opened it there was nothing inside but I realized that it was to put stuff in it.

"Wha...Ryan. Where did you get this?"

She starts to turn red again. "I asked one of the Hephaestus kids to make it. They are pretty handy with metal."

"That's..." I see her lean towards me from the corner of my eye and feel as she puts her hand behind my neck. Then she kisses me on the cheek and I completely tense up, feeling my ears burning.

I look at her and she smiles at me. We grew extremely close. Always hanging out, playing tricks on each other, messing around as if we are siblings. But I always have this feeling in the back of my mind that gets me all warm and fuzzy inside. Which shouldn't be there right? I'm just a kid.

"You're welcome." She says.

I gulped so loud I hoped she didn't hear. Her bright green eyes were watching me with happiness as they twinkled from the sun that was shining through the opened door.

"Uhhh..." I say stupidly and she half laughs. "T-Thanks." I forced myself to get it out.

"Annabeth is waiting outside for you."

Still with her hand behind my neck she slowly slides it away and starts to brush my wet hair to the side, it must have been a mess. Then she accidentally hits her thumb against my bruised up eye that I had gotten during Capture the Flag and makes me wince.

"Sorry." She says. She locks her eyes with mine and smiles. "See you at lunch." Then she gets up and walks out the door.

If I was made up of liquid I would have been a puddle right now. I felt all gushy inside and my face was blazing hot. I was probably as red as Nash's hair. All I know is I must be doing something right if I got a girl to notice me.

Now if you were wondering where the random ring around Annabeth's necklace came from then I will tell you. She got a letter this morning from her dad asking for her to come back and live with them when school starts up. That he wanted to try having her around again. Then explained about how the college ring was a reminder of Athena and what it represented to him and wanted her to have it. She hasn't decided whether she's going to give him another chance but she's thinking about it.

Now I hoped that no one would tell it was my birthday, but that didn't happen. It led to everyone giving me birthday punches. Then someone had a stash of energy drinks in the Hermes cabin and passed it around just before dinner. It was pretty funny, yet scary how much more hyper everyone could be combined with their ADHD.

When I was on my way back to the cabins to clean off the hand full of cake in the face that Freya so kindly thought would make my day, I got ambushed by Brad and his gang of siblings.

"Hey, get off!" I yell as Brad and his brother Danny both grabbed an arm.

"Well." Clarisse steps into view with a smile. "Having fun?"

I look at her, anger in my eyes. "I was, till now."

She looks at the boys then starts to walk away. Brad and Danny go after her, dragging me along towards the lake.

"Dude!" I sink my heels into the dirt and try to pull back, but they are stronger so all they had to do was lift me up.

All that was going through my head was that they were going to beat me up real bad. But instead they gave me a punch to the gut when I wouldn't stop wiggling around and then tossed me into the lake.

"Happy Birthday, loser!" I managed to hear just before I hit the water.

I had been in the middle of trying to catch my breath from the punch. So as I fell in I got a mouth full of water and immediately start to panic as I inhaled it. I sank pretty deep into the lake, deep enough to see some Naiads, also known as a Nymph, which is a nature creature but they all live in different locations. Some live on land around where trees are (Dryads) and some like the water. They love to sing and dance too. It can be very distracting.

As I started to sink I felt one of the Naiads grab me and help me back up to the surface. My breathing was shot and I was coughing up water as she pulled me to the grass. The Naiad was actually very pretty. She had dark brown hair and light brown eyes. Her skin glowed in the light.

"Are you crazy!" Someone yells. "Move!"

"Joey!" Another voice comes. "Oh my gods!"

I tried to drag myself as much out of the water as I could but my breathing was getting really slow now. I try to put my hand into my pocket, but my hands were shaking too bad as I collapse backwards onto the grass.

"Jilly!" The voice was getting closer. "Jilly, grab his inhaler. It's in his pocket!"

Dark circles started to come to my eyes. But in the matter of seconds I felt the Naiad pull out my inhaler and hand it to me. Even in a moment of weakness my reflexes kicked in and reacted by putting the inhaler to my mouth. It was as if my body was moving on its own. Once the circles start to leave I sit up and a familiar face popped into my vision as it got clearer. Then arms flew around my body from behind.

"You big idiot." Her voice was shaky and her eyes were popping out of her head in fear.

I half smile. "Good to see you too, Annabeth." I say weakly.

"Are you okay?" I hear Ryan's voice in my ear.

I take a huge breath and nod. "I'm fine, Ry."

Her arms were the ones around me, so she lets go and sits in front of me next to Annabeth. "We saw what happened." She says. "What made Clarisse do that."

"Birth..." I have to take another breath. I felt a bit dizzy and start to fall sideways. Then I feel as Ryan grabs both my hands while Annabeth rushes forward to catch my arm and has me lean against her to keep me up. "Birthday dunk." I finish.

"Stupid." Annabeth shakes her head. The fear was starting to fade but her anger was coming. "Absolutely stupid."

I look behind Ryan and they both look when they saw my eyes wander away. The Naiad was still sitting on the edge of the grass by the lake.

"Thank you, Jilly." Ryan says.

She nods. "My pleasure."

"Yea." I say. "Thanks."

She nods again, her eyes smiling even though she wasn't. "I'm Jillian."

"Joey."

"Should keep away from that group." She says sweetly.

"I try. But they are very pushy."

She just half smiles and then takes off after saying goodbye. The girls then help me off to the cabin to clean up.

Now I'm sitting at the beach with Annabeth and Luke sometime later, watching the water rising and then slowly going back towards the horizon as the sun was almost completely faded away.

"What do you _mean_ you're leaving?" Annabeth says in a confused tone.

I tried my best not to invade in their conversation, but it was getting a little hard to ignore. Even with the random sea creatures that kept popping up out of the water. We should have been over with everyone else getting ready for the singalong but they thought it would be a lame thing to do for my birthday, or in Annabeths words a good distraction because of what happened with the Ares kids. So they brought me here to watch the sunset and that gave them time to give me their gifts.

Luke's was simple enough. Sports trading cards and a pack of Pepsi that Franky had sent him in the mail. Since we aren't allowed to leave camp we can't really get anything from the outside world unless we order it from Hermes mailing company or ask a satyr to do it. But good tasting soda isn't usually something we can have since it's not very diet like. The soda we ask for from the magic cups doesn't taste the same without the caffeine and bubbles. Most of the junk food that is snuck into camp is because the satyrs help out. Other than that don't be hoping for any Sour Cream and Onion chips to be part of the daily menu.

Now Annabeth actually shocked me with her present. As she went through her backpack I noticed the third Harry Potter book I had given her for her birthday (a bit late I should add because I had to get mom and dad to send it to me). Which made me think that her being the ten year old brainiac she would have given me a book too, with like math problems or something nerdy like that. But that wasn't even close. It was a signed baseball from Derek Jeter. You heard me. _Derek Jeter._ Only one of the most known Yankees player in the world.

"Holy Styx!" I half yell. "Are you kidding me?"

She smiles. "Crazy huh?"

"Yea. But how did you..."

"Chiron." She says simply.

"Why would Chiron know how to get one of the most famous baseball players to sign a baseball for a random kid?"

"Because Chiron and Jeter go way back." Luke butts in.

I raise an eyebrow. "But he doesn't even leave camp."

Annabeth and Luke both laugh and look at each other.

"Don't you remember me telling you that there are famous people who are demigods?" She looks back to me.

My mouth drops. "Nooo." I almost whisper in shock. "You're telling me that Derek Jeter. Yankees shortstop, Mr. November, is a demigod?" They nod at the same time. "Who's his parent?"

"Believe it or not." Annabeth says with a warning look in her eyes.

"It's Aphrodite." Luke finishes.

I try not to laugh. "That's a joke?" They shake their heads. "Oh come on. He's an athlete. That is like the complete opposite of the personality her kids usually get."

"Not everyone is like their parents." Annabeth says.

I nod. "Clearly."

Now back to this particular moment, their conversation was getting a little hard to block out. Annabeth was obviously upset, so I look away from the ocean and see her get to her feet.

"You can't just go on a quest and leave me behind." You could hear the hurt in her voice. "We've been waiting for this. You can take two people. I want to go."

"It's too dangerous." Luke says.

"I don't care!" She yells. "I'm tired of being stuck here just training. All the real monsters are out there." She points towards the ocean to make a point that it's outside of camp. "I want a chance to prove myself."

"You will." He says calmly. "When _you_ get a quest."

She starts pacing out of anger, mumbling to herself.

"Annabeth." He leans forward and grabs her hand, pulling her closer. "I'm just trying to protect you, the way I always have." Her face goes from anger to no emotion. "You still have time to get a quest. Don't worry."

"But..."

"This one has nothing to it. I have to get an apple from a tree. How lame is that?"

She half smiles and sits back in between us. It's amazing how their relationship is. Even though it's obvious that Annabeth has a crush on Luke it doesn't keep her from keeping her head on and trying to make the friendship work the way it is. Kind of like me and Ryan. I know I like her, but I'm not sure if she likes me. I mean the Stolls say she does, but a lot of the things she does seems more friendly than interest.

After sitting there for a bit longer we eventually headed back towards the cabins. They decided to join the campfire singalong, while I passed and went straight to the cabin. I took out my Gameboy from the trunk under my bed and played one of my new games till I fell asleep.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Anything Percy Jackson related belongs to Rick Riordan. ****I do now own or take credit.**

**Sorry that I take longer to upload this story for anyone who has been reading. There are quite a few stories that I've started and haven't kept up with in awhile, so it's not just this one. However, i****f you're still keeping up than thank you, much appreciated.**

**I don't know when I will be uploading again, but I hope you e****njoy. Review if you want me to keep up more frequently with this one.**

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_**Chapter Sixteen**_

I woke up in a sweat Monday morning after having a crazy dream. It started out like any normal human dream. I was playing basketball in the driveway of our old house in Florida with my brothers. I made a shot and then the scene went dark. When it lit up again I was in a white spaced room with no windows or doors. Someone, or something was standing at the end of it and my brothers had disappeared. I was super confused because besides the fact that the whole scene changed I had noticed in a mirror that was next to me that I looked like my twelve year old self, not the little kid who was just playing basketball in Florida a second ago.

I looked back over towards the end of the room once I got over the shock of seeing myself in the mirror. The figure was just standing there under a light that made it hard to get a good look. Before I could say anything it starts to walk closer and I knew right away who this was when she got to me.

"Athena."

She smiles. "Hello, Joey."

I watch her for a minute without saying a word, and she didn't break the silence. She must have been giving me time to process. But all I know is that I have mixed emotions of shock and anger right now. This is the goddess that screwed up my family, the goddess that is supposed to be my "mom." It still makes my brain hurt to try and wrap my mind around the fact that I technically have two biological mothers. That is beyond not normal and obviously that's something my life will never be.

"You actually know who I am?" I finally decide to say.

"Of course. You are my son."

"Funny way of letting me know that."

Her eyes sadden a bit, but she keeps a half smile. "You're upset."

I kept a straight face as I said, "Me...upset?"

She nods. "It's understandable."

I shake my head, "No it's not. None of this is understandable at all, it's confusing."

She watches me for what seemed to be ever. "I'm sorry, Joey. It's just the way it's supposed to be."

"Having me born by two human parents with a godly one somehow attached shouldn't have been an option. You should have just given dad another meaningful gift knowing he was married and let them have a normal kid. You turned me into a freak."

"I know it doesn't make sense to you. It never does at first. But you are destined for great things."

"Couldn't I have just been destined to be great by becoming a professional basketball player?"

She slightly smiles at me. "You can still do that."

"With monsters always after me?"

"Don't let that knowledge be all you think about."

"Isn't the point of being your kid to have knowledge."

She nods. "Yes. But if you let certain knowledge control you, then you will never succeed in what you want to do. There are plenty of demigod athletes out there."

"Like Derek Jeter."

She nods. "Yes, he is only one of many demigods that have managed to find a way to live normal lives in the mortal world."

"I don't want to find a way to do what I love. I want to be able to do it without turning around and hoping that the people around me aren't nonhuman."

"Joey." She watches me with what looked like proudness in her eyes. The way dad always looks at me when I actually get a good grade in school. "Just because you are half god does not mean you can't have a normal life. Things will be tough, but things will also eventually get easier once you are prepared for this lifestyle."

"But..."

She puts a hand up. "One thing at a time."

"Okay?"

"I wanted to warn you to why the monsters attacked you so early. They may not have done so at all had it not been for that."

I watch her as she points to my wrist. "I don't get it. What does the watch you gave me have to do with monsters?"

"Do you know what it does?"

I nod. "Slows down time."

She nods. "At the time I didn't think it would be useful to anyone else besides you. It was just a gift for my child, like so many others I've given before."

I'm not sure why, but that stung a bit. She said it as if the watch was no big deal. Like it was just another piece of object she was giving to me since it was a routine for all her kids. As if she didn't mean anything by it.

"Now I know." She continues, nodding to herself. "It's more powerful than I thought it would be. If anyone else besides you gets that watch, especially evil, they can manipulate anything."

"And you thought this was a good gift for a child because?"

"Because it is meant for protection, not for greediness. I knew you would use it wisely. Evil will use it for bigger things than dodging people in capture the flag."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Be alert of your surroundings, outside of camp in particular. Don't tell anyone you don't fully trust about it."

"Do you know for sure if they do when they are going to take it from me?"

She shakes her head. "It's hard to tell. Could be days, could be years. May never even happen."

_That was helpful. _I think to myself.

I went to say something but then everything around us goes to a dark space with flames surrounding us. A horrible sound of laughter came to my ears and I shiver as I could feel the laugh go through my entire body. The way the feeling of cold weather enters your warm body and you have a random shiver spasm for a second.

I look at Athena, who has her attention elsewhere. Then the laugh comes again and I see what she's looking at as an image of a figure behind the flames comes to view. I couldn't see who it was, so I get closer. The fire starts to surround me more and I can feel it suffocating me.

"Beware them." Athena says as she backs away.

I watch her through the tears forming in my eyes from the smoke as she starts to disappear. "Who?" I manage to get out.

"All evil." Then she vanishes and the space starts to get bright, the flames die out.

Seriously? All evil? Could she have been anymore nonspecific. That pretty much narrowed it down to the entire Underworld.

"Joey!" I turn around and see I'm standing in my driveway again, my brothers are playing ball as if nothing interrupted us.

I head back to them and hear my name echo around me. I cover my ears because it was such a loud voice it felt like my eardrums would burst. The floor starts to rumble like an earthquake and that's when my eyes open, I'm in my bed at camp.

I jump as I felt a hand touch my shoulder and I sit up in my bed so fast that I got a head rush.

"Whoa." I recognize Freya's voice. "You okay?"

I put my hand to my head and wait for my vision to come back. Then I look and see her sitting on my bed next to me with concern on her face.

I nod. "You just scared me." I wipe the sweat from my face.

"Did you have a dream? You were mumbling in your sleep."

I slowly nod. "Yea. But I'm fine."

She smiles. "Well...it's almost time for breakfast."

I lay back down, "Okay." I yawn. "One minute."

"Freya."

We both turn our heads to the voice. Annabeth was walking through the front door.

"Johnny's looking for you."

Johnny is Freya's best friend. They had gotten to camp a day apart from each other sometime at the end of the summer last year. He was an unclaimed thirteen year old who had a hard time talking to anyone else besides her because they were both new and around the same age. That allowed them to rely on each other and became close.

"Thanks, Annabeth." She gets up. "See you later, Joey."

I smile and she walks away.

Annabeth comes over to me. "Hey." She sits on the bottom of my bed.

I sit up and lean against the head rest. "Morning."

"You feeling okay?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Yea?"

"You look a little pale."

"Oh." Is all I say.

She leans in close and puts her hand to my forehead. "Bit warm too."

I smile a bit. "I'm okay. Just need some food. I'll be good to go."

She slowly nods. Then she says. "Luke's leaving."

"Now?"

"After lunch." I could see in her eyes she was holding back the urge to look upset.

From what I heard of their conversation last night, she wanted so badly to go on this quest with him. Apparently you're allowed to choose two others to go with you if you are picked to go on some demigod adventure and she wanted to be one of them. I don't know why anyone would be crazy enough to walk back out of this place knowing that the journey they are about to take is life threatening. Then again, I guess leaving even to go back home is just as unsafe and nuts to do as well.

"Let's go, Speedy."

I give her a look and she laughs. "Stop calling me that."

"Well, when you manipulate speed it's a little hard not to call you that."

I look around in panic. "Annabeth!" I yell loud enough for only her to hear.

She gives me an _Oops_ look. "Sorry, Joey."

I lower my voice now. "I only told you about my speed watch because I trust you."

"No, you only told me because you gave in when I asked how you beat both Brad and Clarisse on Friday." She says in the same low tone as me.

"Okay, fine. I messed up a bit on keeping my secret. But I was also tired of keeping it to myself, so I trusted you with this. You promised not to say anything."

"I'm not. It just slipped out."

"I know, but you have to be careful. It's just not something I want people to know about, or at least not now. They'll take advantage. I'm only supposed to use it for emergencies. That's the purpose."

"So beating Clarisse at wrestling without a scratch and keeping Brad from pounding you during capture the flag is an emergency?"

I turn red. "It was an accident."

She gives me a look.

"Okay, maybe it was an impulse. But it helped teach them a lesson for thinking I'm weak didn't it? Even if Brad did get a good hit before I could use it." I gesture to my eye.

"For the moment it taught them a lesson, but you don't need that power to show them you can beat them. You can do that on your own."

"I know."

She slightly smiles. "Well." She drags me out of bed. "Get dressed, it's almost time for breakfast."

I nod. "I'll be out in ten minutes."

I knew she'd hold me to the time I said, so I took the quickest shower I've ever had. Then I brushed my teeth, tossed my camp shirt on and scrambled around the room looking for my beige cargo shorts while everyone else had just left for breakfast. Then I rushed to grab my watch and cap as I met with Annabeth outside right at the ten minute mark.

"New record!" I yell with my hands in the air as if I just won a marathon. I see that Luke was there, and Anbabeth looks a little ticked off.

"Hey little buddy." He says.

"Oh, hey." I got a little red from embarrassment. Then I put a face as I realized what he said. "I'm not little anymore."

He smiles. "I know, just a habit."

I half smile, then I see him with his backpack on his shoulder. "You're ready for this, man?"

He nods. "It's an honor to get a quest. That means our parents are actually noticing us."

I half smile as we walk to the pavilion. I started thinking about Athena coming to me in my dream. All she told me was to keep a look out for anyone or anything that may take the watch from me. But Luke saying that him getting a quest is a sign from his dad makes me wonder if that means that I'm meant to do more than just hang out at camp all summer. I'm not sure how I feel about that if that's what the dream meant. I didn't want to leave the camp for any other reason besides to go home.

"By the way." He says. "I need to talk to you before I leave."

"About?"

"The quest."

When we head inside the pavilion, everyone looked at us. I knew it wasn't for any other reason besides the fact that Luke was there. A few people here and there got out of their seats or hopped out of line to talk to him as we went to get our breakfast. Then me and Annabeth headed over to our table while he went over to his.

During this time I found out that the reason Annabeth was upset was because Luke told her that he chose two people to go with him. I knew she was mad that he wouldn't take her but she knew he would take someone else.

"He's taking Robert." She stops for a second and gives a look down the table.

My mouth drops. "What?" I look over to him also, he actually looked a bit nervous.

"Apparently the people he takes has something to do with the prophecy the Oracle told him."

The Oracle isn't something I've been able to see yet. You are only allowed when you're destined for a quest yourself. The Oracle is the speaker of prophecies of Apollo that lives in the attic of the Big House. Apparently she is a mummified corpse (cue creepy music). Somehow the spirit of Delphi is still able to tell you prophecies. In a demigods case she's supposed to give you a prophecy that has something to do with the quest you are sent to do. Prophecies usually are in riddle form, so it can be hard to figure out the meaning of it sometimes.

She looks back to me. "And no, he didn't tell me what it said."

"Robert doesn't care for anyone but himself." I say.

She nods. "I know. He's going to get him killed."

"Then who is the second person he's taking?"

She shrugged. "He wouldn't say, but he's not even sure if he's going."

"Why wouldn't he know that?"

"Because he hasn't talked to this person yet."

"But he leaves today. What is he waiting for?"

She just shrugs and eats her breakfast.

After breakfast Luke pulled me aside. "Can we talk?"

"I have rotations."

"It's quick. Kind of important. May decide if you actually have to go to your rotations."

I raise an eyebrow. "I don't get it."

He takes a deep breath. "Okay. I hate to be the one to do this to you but I need to ask."

I didn't like the tone in his voice.

"The Oracle told me that to succeed in my quest I need the help of an enemy."

"Which is why you are taking Robert?"

He nods. "She also said that a friend I truly trust needs to be by my side in order to get the object I seek."

"That sounds like a job for Annabeth."

He nods. "She would have been my first choice. However, I wouldn't risk her life. She's too young and like a sister to me. But also the Oracle said it was a boy." He thinks to himself, "_The sons of the owl, you have to decide. An enemy you despise plus the friend you truly trust to be by your side. To help get what you seek you must slow down time, or die_." He phrases the prophecy to me. "The last line was a bit too specific to me." He half laughs.

My heart completely drops. I knew that part was about me. Does he know? No, he can't. The prophecy didn't explain what it meant and Annabeth wouldn't have told him, would she? Either way, the prophecy obviously included me.

Before I freaked myself out I say. "You're asking me to be the friend...aren't you?"

He slowly nods.

"Why? You just met me. There are people you've known here longer, and have more training. Why me?"

"I trust you the most."

I was quiet for awhile. He didn't know my secret. He probably has no idea what the slow down time part even meant.

"Please, Joey?"

My mind was racing. I didn't want to leave camp, especially after the warning I got from Athena. But the look of desperation made me finally nod. "Okay."

He takes a deep relieved breath. "Thank you."

Now I only had a few hours till lunch to pack. Luke told Annabeth the deal and I had to warn my family. They were so speechless that they didn't even know what to say. I told them that it was the highest honor of being a demigod to be picked for a quest. I didn't care for it but I didn't want to be a bad friend. They objected of course, but in the end it wasn't their choice.

By the time lunch came around Annabeth wasn't her usually self. I heard she was beyond mad at Luke for asking me to go. One reason I knew was because she wanted to go. Another is because I don't have much experience and she's scared that he's going to get me killed, or the other way around. Now we were sitting at our table and she wasn't interacting much, silent most of the time because I knew she was trying not to get upset.

Then there was me, well I was talking to my siblings but I was also trying to figure out what to say to her without making it worse. The look on her face was making it hard not to give her a hug. For such a young kid (not that I'm much older, I know) she's able to hold her ground and keep herself from seeming weak. But right now she was having a bit of bad luck with hiding her emotions.

I finally decide to nudge her lightly and she turns to me.

I give her a smile. "Everything is going to be okay." I whisper a bit.

She half smiles. "I haven't been without him around since we met. It's going to be weird." I go to say something, but she interrupts. "And I can't believe he asked you to go."

I nod. "Yea. I get the feeling."

"Why did you agree?"

I turn away. "He seemed desperate."

"He was."

"Don't worry okay?" I push her playfully and make her laugh a bit. Then I kiss her on cheek. "I got this, sis."

Before the conversation could continue I got a not so great surprise.

"Rodgers, think fast!"

I look across the Athena table to where the voice came from.

"Our gift to you!"

Freya was sitting in front of me and had turned her head towards the voice as well. She had a better view than I did and was just able to duck out of the way as something the size of a small ball is on the way to my face.

SMACK! It hits me so hard that I almost fall out of my seat.

"Ow!" I don't know what it was but it broke and was wet, it was even hard enough that pain traveled all over my face.

I wipe my hand on my face and felt that it was also sticky. Then I see a mixture of clear and yellow goo on my hand when I pulled it away. Confusion was the first thing that came to mind. Then I hear screams of amusement and look over Freya's head to see the Ares table in a fit of laughter. They looked like they were about to pass out from lack of air. The sad part was that Chiron hadn't joined us at the pavilion yet, and Mr. D is so fond of the Ares kids that he didn't even bother to get out of his seat. He just looked over to us then continued eating his food.

"Oh my gods." Freya says. "Joey, I'm sorry. It was an impulse to move."

Then Annabeth says. "I think you're bleeding."

"What did they throw at me?" Everyone was looking at me, but they went from confused to mad when they realized what happened and turned their attention to the Ares table instead.

"Egg." Annabeth says.

I look at her. "An egg? Are you kidding me?"

She shakes her head. Then I grab a napkin and wince from the pain that hurt my lip as soon as I cleaned off my face. Sure enough, there was blood. I immediately grab another napkin and hold it to my lip.

"You okay?" She asks.

I watch the Ares table and Brad just waves like an idiot at me. "How's that for someone who can't aim?" He says.

I roll my eyes.

During our encounter in Friday's capture the flag he kept missing me. At the time I hadn't used my watch, so he was at full speed and was still missing almost every jab, punch or kick he made at me. I've gotten a bit better at sword fighting and fist fighting so I got a bit cocky and told him he had horrible aim. Then he took me off guard by trying to grab the flag from behind me and just as I was about to slow down time he hit me with the butt of his sword in the eye. He got a lucky shot by me being distracted from trying to use the watch, but he never got the flag from me.

"I'll be right back." I announce to my table and head off to the bathroom. When I get inside I see the yoke all over me. It was nasty and I was mad. Who wastes their time throwing an egg at someone? That had to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen, especially from the Ares cabin.

I shake my head in aggravation and turn on the water. I splash my face and grab the soap to clean off the sticky mess. The cut on my lip wasn't deep but it was a pretty long line going down the bottom part of my lip, and noticeable too.

"Great."

I didn't bother rushing out, but at the same time I didn't want to seem like a wimp. So eventually I left the bathroom, not knowing until I got out that Ryan had followed me. She was leaning against the wall when I walked out.

"Ry."

She looks at me and half smiles. "You okay?" She walks closer.

"Yea." I have a confused face. "What are you..." She hugs me, which takes me by surprise. "Doing here." I finish when she lets me go.

"Don't go." She says, her face was a bit red and teary.

"Well, I..." I could feel my face burning up and I was a bit lost for words for a few seconds. "If it wasn't the fact that Luke asked I wouldn't have said yes."

"I know. But you're new, you shouldn't have to go so quickly."

I smile a bit. "I'm sorry."

She's quiet for a few seconds. "Want to go for a walk till you have to go?"

I nod. "It's better than going back to the pavilion and having everyone look at me with concern."

"Or have the Ares table laugh at you."

I nod. "Yea. That too."

She smiles and we start heading the opposite direction from the pavilion, ending up where the log is on the beach. We tried to stay positive and talked about nonsense. I watched as her eyes changed to a light blue in the sun and it was amazing. I'm not sure about her, but all the butterflies came to my stomach the entire time we were together. I hated that I was leaving.


	17. Not a chapter, but please read

**Hey everyone. I know it's been a really long time since I bothered with this story. I kind of lost the inspiration to continue when I got writer's block. But I started a new story based off of Joey that takes place years later. I don't know when exactly I'll be getting that one up.**

**Im thinking of putting that story here for the people who were into his life and can continue to follow. What I**** haven't decided yet is whether to replace this story all together and just start it over from the beginning so that it's under the same name, or to have it end where it did and then have a time skip. If I do a time skip then I'll try to see if I can do a summary of what happened to him when he went on that quest with Luke and Robert.**

**What are your thoughts on this idea? Let me know.**


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